


The Desperation For Understanding

by ChimFTW



Category: Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Angst and Feels, Angsty Jack Kelly, Artist Jack Kelly, Davey/Jack, David Jacobs Needs A Hug, David Jacobs/Jack Kelly-centric, David/Jack - Freeform, Dramatic David Jacobs, Dramatic Jack Kelly, Everyone Is Gay, Everyone Needs A Hug, First Kiss, Gay David Jacobs, Gay Newsies, Gay Racetrack Higgins, Heavy Angst, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Internalized Homophobia, Jewish David Jacobs, M/M, Men Crying, Minor Spot Conlon/Racetrack Higgins, Mutual Pining, Non-Graphic Violence, Ouch, Race and David are besties, Sad David Jacobs, Sad Jack Kelly, Sad and Happy, Tears, Wordcount: Over 20.000, javid - Freeform, this one hurts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:08:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27539644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChimFTW/pseuds/ChimFTW
Summary: In 2010, Jack and Davey are best friends, closer than two boys ought to be in suburban Manhattan. In 2020, it has been ten years since Jack and Davey last spoke, ending on poor terms and causing turbulent skies for their future...if they have one at all.After being forced to meet once more when Race invites Davey over for the long weekend, Jack and Davey fight with each other, and themselves, to understand what went wrong and who's to blame.
Relationships: David Jacobs/Jack Kelly
Comments: 3
Kudos: 36





	The Desperation For Understanding

**Author's Note:**

> TRIGGER WARNINGS: Internalized homophobia, talk of conversion therapy/camp, minor violence, and lots of sadness. 
> 
> I'm pretty sure 'lots of sadness' isn't a real trigger warning, but it has to be said.

_July_ _3 rd, 2010, Manhattan_

_1:02 a.m._

Jack digs his fingers into the dirt and pulls out a handful of grass. He lets it fall through his fingers and onto his chest. With a smile, he draws a smiley face in the dirt and laughs as it gets caught beneath his fingernails. The wind blows away his art piece. Strands of hair fall into his eyes, and he blinks them away rapidly, not wanting to touch his eyes with his dirtied hands. His mother once told him that getting dirt in his eyes is the first step to going blind.

His phone fits heavy in his pocket, unused. Weighed down by texts he doesn’t want to acknowledge. It buzzes once, then goes back to sleep.

Jack wishes he were asleep. But he’s got something important to do—something big is thrumming at his core and closing his eyes will only make it explode. So, he looks up at the stars and reminds himself of every fact he’s ever learnt.

Sirius A is the brightest star in the sky. The Alpha Centauri system is the closest to earth. There are no green stars. Stars are born in patches. Somewhere out there in the great, big blackness of space is a star named Bunny because on Jacks’ tenth birthday someone bought him a star.

He watches the leaves on the trees sway in the wind. They cover some of his stars, but that’s alright. Jack has spent enough time staring at them to know exactly where they are and what they look like. A cool wash of serenity skips right over Jack, but it reaches the rest of the world. With the sound of leaves brushing against one another and the beat of his heart and the faint howl of a dog, Jack thinks he knows what it’s like to be at one with nature.

He pictures himself sinking into the ground and becoming one with the worms. Befriending them would be easy once he learnt their language. Becoming one of them would be harder, but Jack can make it work. The simplicity of being a worm would surround him, then, and nurture him the way nothing else can. And the grass would become his food and his life source, and when little kids come stomping around in the dirt, they will dig their fingers into the ground and bring Jack up with them.

“Aren’t you cold?”

Jack closes his eyes and lets the voice wash over him. His heart stops beating for just a moment, but it’s enough to make him scared.

“It’s summer,” Jack replies, voice carried by the wind.

There’s silence for a moment, and two boys listen a little too hard for the dogs who howl behind four walls. Jack grasps onto the sound of the leaves again, but everything keeps coming back to the soft breathing of his friend and the shifting of fingers against denim.

Davey sniffs and sits next to Jack, legs crossed, and hands folded in his lap.

Peeking over at his friend, Jack smiles for the first time that day. Watching Davey sit in a field of grass with an old t-shirt and a big sweater is warming in the way a summer’s day can never be. He’s got a book tucked under his arm, and it’s thick and bent out of shape. Love torn or well worn.

Davey looks up at the stars, and his smile is small, but it exists, and that’s enough for Jack.

“You know you can see 9,096 stars with just your eyes?” says Davey, soft and light and sweet.

Jack reaches up his hands, fingers wiggling as if he could tickle the stars. If they could laugh, Jack imagines it would sound like a dozen wind chimes or maybe a waterfall. He boxes a couple of stars between his fingers, one eye closed as he takes a mental picture.

“I could paint ‘em all,” says Jack, bringing his finger-box closer to his face until it smooshes his nose. “All 9,096 of ‘em.”

Davey smiles and closes his eyes. “I’d like to see you try.”

Jack twists his body at an ugly angle so that he faces Davey, his own grin growing. He looks up at Davey, and the moonlight hollows out the boy’s features, makes his nose look bigger and his eyes disappear. He was going to say something, but his tongue has forgotten how to do its job, and so Jack goes back to thinking about worms.

It’s easier this way.

Hesitant, as if he thinks a sudden move could ruin their carefully built brick house, Jack holds out his pinky. It takes a moment, but Davey opens his eyes and looks over. Now, with the stars reflecting off his eyes and making them shine, Davey looks a lot more real. It soothes Jack to know that this isn’t just something he’s dreaming up and that the world has really, truly given him Davey Jacobs.

Davey links his pinky with Jack’s.

_January 17 th, 2020, Manhattan_

_4:19 p.m._

The cold, biting wind seeps in through the cracks in the walls. If he looked hard enough, he would catch the stray snowflake slip through the wood and melt on his floor. But Jack focuses on his painting, perfecting each brushstroke along the river bend’s curve. Muddy blue covers most of the canvas, polluted looking and sour-smelling, but the trees are luscious and green, thick with care and love. Roots spread above ground.

Jack shivers and goosebumps litter his skin. His layers have been thrown off long ago, strewn across the floor without a care in the world. Bugs will find their home in his jacket pockets soon enough, but Jack doesn’t have half a mind to care. They feel the cold, too, and a Manhattan winter isn’t the time to throw living creatures out into the snow.

He takes a step back from his painting and drops his hands. The tip of the paintbrush smooths against his leg, staining yet another pair of jeans. Jack tilts his head and forces himself to point out each and every flaw that he put on the canvas. The water looks nice, it flows the way it’s supposed to, and the trees with their branches are realistic enough to make him second-guess his own skills.

But it’s the stars that don’t look right. None of them are in the right positions, forcing themselves into the wrong spots with the sole purpose of annoying Jack. And it’s always like this—the stars are never right. They never look good. No matter the classes he takes or the techniques he tries, the stars evade him. They turn his every painting into a disaster that isn’t worth selling.

Jack drops his paintbrush into the can that holds his supplies and picks up his panting. His thumbs smudge the fresh paint, blurring the water line into the grass the way it would look through tears. He brings his thumb back and stares at it, unsure of himself. Rubbing his thumb against his pointer finger, he spreads the paint around. Methodical. Revelling in the smooth feeling pressing against his rough hands. The paint seeps into the cracks of his fingers. If it blends into his blood, maybe it could make him a better painter.

Spreading his fingers wide, Jack presses his open palm flat against the canvas. The cool paint sinks deep into his bones and colours him blue, brown, and green. He moves his hand around, smudging the painting until it is recognizable. His eyes trace the tips of his fingers, imagining them to be smoothing through the very water he is destroying.

There’s a knock on the wall, and Jack stops.

“You goin’ home?” a voice asks, and Jack doesn’t have to turn around to know that Race is leaning against the wall.

Jack takes his hand off the canvas and flexes his fingers. The colour is disgusting, and it reminds him of his paint water.

“Yeah,” Jack says, and he doesn’t look at Race. He throws the ruined canvas into the corner of the studio, where the rest of his ruined paintings go. “I’m comin’.”

Race scratches the back of his neck, eyes stuck on the ruined painting Jack has just thrown away. The pile grows each day, like a mountain forced into the corner of the studio. Sometimes, Jack imagines himself climbing to the top and planting a flagpole. His very own Everest, right there for the taking.

“How’s, uh…” Race trails off, unsure of himself. Watching as Jack vigorously wipes his hands clean of paint, he chances a step inside the studio. “How’s the art goin’?”

Throwing the old, paint-stained towel at his feet, Jack purses his lips, face tight with annoyance. “Ain’t got any talent left.”

Race rolls his eyes. “Yeah, sure. Tell that to all your buyers, Jack-a-boy.”

Jack looks him in the eyes, fleeting and nervous. “Ain’t got any of ‘em left, either.”

They leave the studio together, Jack now bundled up in his layers. When he shoves his hands deep into his pockets, the slighter touch of a bug grazes his knuckles. He takes his hand out of his pocket and watches in awe as a small wood bug skitters across the back of his hand. For a moment, Jack imagines the wood bug is some kind of traveller, like Frodo Baggins in bug form. The trek is long and dangerous across the peach landscape, chalked full of mountains and dives. He knows how the story will end—the wood bug will survive and run along home to its family, curiosity soothed.

Holding his hand out to Race, Jack says, “Found a Roly Poly.”

Race doesn’t care for it the way Jack does. His eyes barely linger on the small thing, but he smiles for his friend and tells him that it’s cute. They stop near a couple of snow-covered bushes next to a small patch of grass, and Jack crouches down to let the wood bug go free. Slowly, the wood bug crawls off of Jack’s knuckles and into the patch of grass. Despite the snow, the bug snuggles beneath the bushes happily.

Jack wishes he could be that happy with the small things in life.

Their home is a lot warmer than wherever the wood bug gets to sleep. It’s bigger, too, but that is a given. Still, as Race hangs outside to smoke his cigarette and Jack passes him, he thinks about how the wood bug must be feeling right now. Left all alone in the snow while Jack gets to come home and warm up with a nice heater.

Hanging up his jacket next to the door and kicking off his shoes, Jack takes the stairs two at a time, mindlessly eager to be wrapped up with a blanket and listen to the strange things Spot will say as he cooks dinner.

It smells like soup and toast—the kind of high-class, high-quality meal the Manhattan middle-class enjoy on their coldest days. Sometimes, Spot makes chilli, claiming national security whenever someone tries to get his heavenly recipe. _Family recipe,_ he says as he smacks his friends with a rolled-up hand towel, _ain’t none of y’alls business._ But the boys keep pestering him every chilli night, so often that chilli night becomes a rarity. A cause for celebration.

“Long day?” Spot asks when Jack enters the kitchen. He’s stuck at the stove, stirring a pot of soup casually, hip cocked, and head tilted. Even here, in the warmth and safety of their home, he is ready to pounce.

For a splitting second, Jack wonders if he looks like that, too. But he distracts himself quickly, not in the mood for his mindless crisis. Jack turns on the tap and sets it too hot—too hot to be kind on his skin, but he relishes in the burn even when it becomes too much. Scrubbing the paint off his hands, Jack tries to come up with an answer that doesn’t sound as self-deprecating as it feels.

“Usual gig,” Jack replies eventually. “Nothin’ special. You?”

Spot shrugs and makes one his faces. The one that means _eh, the world is boring._ It’s on his face as often as his grin. “The boys ain’t listenin’ so good lately. I’ll knock some sense into ‘em tomorrow.”

Jack hums. There isn’t much to say between them, and there has never been the need for useless words. Spot says what he wants to say, and nothing short of that. Jack, in his own way, says what he means to say and doesn’t want to listen to people beat around the bush when he knows he could be wasting his time painting instead of listening to people blabbering. It’s good this way.

“Aye,” Race calls from the bottom of the stairs. They can just barely smell the smoke rolling off his clothes and blowing inside from the open door. It’s as calming as it is sickening. “That soup I smell?”

“And toast!” Spot calls back, his smile growing.

Laughter runs up the stairs as fast as Race does. “The great luxury meal, aye, boys?”

Dinner is quiet, as it always is. Save for the sounds of Race slurping up his soup and Spot ripping into his slices of toast, there is little noise for Jack to focus on. And he has grown used to it, but he still feels like something else is missing. The constant need for conversation—the _want_ for endless conversations has sat deep inside his gut for years now. No matter how hard he tries, Jack has never gotten rid of the desire to listen as someone runs their mouth on stupid topics they love so much.

He tries to think of something new to paint. Although his patrons have been few and far between these days, Jack still has the itch to paint something so beautiful everyone will come crawling back to his studio, bills in hand, ready to be thrown at his feet. Everything that comes to mind involves the stars and a deep night sky so mesmerizing Jack gets caught up imagining it. It could be an endless sky, littered with stars of which he has forgotten all facts about.

Fleetingly, Jack lets himself wonder how long it has been since the stars have held any meaning.

_April 12 th, 2010, Manhattan_

_4:28 p.m._

Many times, Davey takes the long way home from school. Beneath the crowded tree branches, there is a sense of ease that fills Davey up and never lets him go until the busy streets are too loud to ignore. Covered by the shadows, it’s easy to hide away from most of the world. There are benches plotted at the edges of the path, carved into and struck with silver memorial plates.

Sometimes, Davey sits on one of those benches and just…exists. He people watches, comes up with a dozen stories for each passerby and makes up some songs for them, as well. Nothing fancy, small jingles you could memorize in a minute. Every couple of blinks, Davey is tempted to take a nap on the bench and see what he wakes up to. He’s only ever done it once and had woken up to his mother’s worried face and her big eyes.

Today is not the kind of day for people watching.

Davey stumbles down the shaded path, feet trudging along the ground in slow sweeps. His energy has dwindled spectacularly since his last couple of steps, and each one seems nearly impossible to take. His toes are numb, and so is his cheek and, if he were to be bothered to check, he was sure his lip was just as unfeeling.

The pain is the least of Davey’s worries—if he could rank his worries from 1 to 10, he isn’t quite sure where anything would be put because he has awfully more than 10 worries and most of them include his parents seeing him like this. The others include passing out, losing feeling in his entire face, seeing _those_ boys again, and letting Jack see him like this.

Jack Kelly, the ever fighting, ever-lively boy with a mind full of dreams and a hand full of talent. There’s something special about Jack Kelly that has never been special about anyone else, and it strikes fear into Davey’s very core to think that someone could matter so much in his world.

Collapsing onto a nearby bench, Davey sucks in a shuddering breath. It feels as though he inhaled a thousand thorns, or perhaps swallowed miniature knives. Either way, for a split second, Davey wishes he would just stop breathing—the pain would leave him then, at least. Physical or mental, it doesn’t matter when that’s all he can focus on. How everything is painful, no matter how hard he tries to remedy it, to bathe in the hot waters and release the stress of living.

He closes his eyes and lets himself sit. Feeling the drops of blood falling from his nose, sliding over his lips and dropping to his hands is unnerving, but the energy he used to have has completely vanished, leaving him alone and cold yet unbearable hot, bleeding from all sorts of places and aching when he tries to breathe.

What feels like three seconds later—though, he can almost be sure it’s been at least ten minutes—the faint sound of feet pounding against cement echoes inside his head, bouncing from ear to ear without fully being recognized as a real thing. Everything here could be his imagination, except…his imagination has never been that good, not compared to Jack’s. Not compared to anybodys.

“Daves?” That’s Jack’s voice, loud and chopped like he isn’t sure how to speak. “Davey, s’that you?”

If Davey’s mouth could work, he would say a dozen different things. All of them to do with Jack and how, as soon as he speaks, all of Davey’s pain stops, just for a moment. A moment is all he needs to feel fine again, and now that Jack is here, maybe that moment can last a little longer.

Calloused fingers touch Davey’s chin, fleeting, as if scared to cause any pain. There’s the hot puff of breath on his lips, cooling the blood that continues to drip from his nose in a way that makes Davey shiver. When he opens his eyes, it’s to Jack’s own, large and concerned and full of a thousand imaginary situations that Davey knows are tearing him apart. Jack and his overactive mind have always been something Davey can pick up on, no matter what is happening. Sometimes, imagination causes nothing but trouble.

“Hi.” Davey’s voice cracks, and the half-smile he tries to muster falters.

Jack scoffs a little unkindly. “ _Hi?_ Davey, you can’t just say that like you ain’t bleedin’ from ten different places. What happened to you?”

“Would, uh…” Raising his hand to touch his lip, Davey holds it against the cool blood and relishes in the feeling of something other than burning heat and searing pain. He pulls his hand away, and his fingers come back red. “You believe me if I said I fell down the stairs?”

“No,” Jack says with a small shake of his head. “I ain’t stupid.”

“I know.”

For a moment, Jack doesn’t say anything. His eyes flit around Davey’s face, avoiding his eyes as if they would turn him to stone. All of his feelings are worn on his face, heart on his sleeve for the world to see, and Davey is selfish enough to find solace in the thought that all that worry and concern is for him. All for him.

Jack drops his shoulders, unsure of himself and what to do with a quiet, bleeding Davey. It’s never happened before, and neither of them has imagined enough of a cruel world to envision this. Instead of waiting for an answer, Jack pushes one end of his long sleeve shirt past the tips of his fingers. Reaching up, he cautiously dabs beneath Davey's nose. Everything about the action is slow, affectionate in a way that Davey doesn’t let himself understand, and this hurts more than any amount of punches can.

“Who did this?” asks Jack with his sleeve now damp with blood. He skims his fingers up Davey's cheeks and towards his temple, where an ugly looking gash is oozing out blood.

Davey winces. “Nobody, it was just—"

“Don’t lie to me, Davey.”

Snapping his mouth shut, Davey tries to look away, but Jack’s fingers are on his jaw, turning his head so that they are eye-to-eye. Like this, so close and so alone in their own little world, Davey can almost forget what happened to him. What could happen to Jack in the future. The big question he’s asking himself minute of every day—is it worth it to live like this? But nothing is more pressing than the idea of keeping this to himself, and so telling half-truths will become Davey’s full truths.

“The Delancey's,” he whispers, voice shaking in time with his hands.

Jack’s features turn to cement in the wintertime so quickly it's worrying. Not even the shade from the branches can hide the anger that covers Jack’s eyes or the sharp downturn of his lips. And Davey wishes he never has to see Jack so angry ever again. He knows there is nothing to be afraid of, never from Jack, but the look is so familiar that it makes Davey want to vomit.

Flattening his palms against the sides of Davey’s face, Jack asks, “An’ why’d they do this to you?”

Not even a half-truth can cover up Davey’s existence and the shame that comes bubbling up with it. And though Davey has, so far, trusted Jack with everything, this is something he will never trust a soul with, no matter how much he cares for them. Life, as it seems to play out, does no favours for boys like Davey, and all he has left of this life is uncashed favours from a cloud-sitting patron who seems to care very little about his wants and wishes. If He cared, then Davey would be free of his wounds and his shame, and perhaps Jack Kelly could turn into Jaqueline Kelly and the world could spin as it should.

Davey shrugs lamely, picking Jack’s hands from his face like they were patches of dried glue. “I don’t know.”

“Davey—”

“I really don’t know, Jack,” Davey interrupts, shaking hands covering the steady hands of an artist. He allows himself half a second to marvel at how it feels to be holding hands with Jack before schooling himself back into his shame. “Okay?”

As he ponders all the half-truths or full lies he can tell to make this whole thing go away, Davey barely notices when Jack stands from his knees. Their hands fall apart, and the cool wind that takes its place is less than kind. Davey has to fight against the urge to jump forward and put his hands back into Jack's.

With his eyes clouded with every emotion Jack knows how to feel, he choppily gestures for Davey to stand from the bench. He leans forward to help as Davey wobbles on his feet, his strength and energy still yet to return to him in full. When Davey opens his mouth to speak, the words get caught in his throat as Jack wraps him in a warm, strong hug. And for a second, the world stops moving. All there is, is Jack and Davey hugging beneath the branches and covered by the shade. There is no more pain or blood or shame, no fear of prying eyes or questions from either one of their mouths.

With his heart thudding against his chest, stronger than the marching of an army, Davey wraps his arms around Jack’s waist and swallows his list of confessions.

“I ain’t ever leaving your side again,” Jack whispers into Davey’s ear, and the chill that runs down his spine is involuntary. “You hear me? I’ll protect you ‘till the day I die.”

Tears spring to Davey’s eyes. “Okay.”

And what better promise can be made to one another than to be side-by-side until that is no longer an option?

_January 18 th, 2020, Boston_

_6:57 pm_

Inside his office, David watches the people walking below on the sidewalks. Everyone bustles by quickly, wrapped in their winter clothing, fur collars curled tight around their necks. Brightly coloured tuques make the winter-loving people stick out, while the summer lovers’ hunch into themselves in their neutral tones and thin coats. The sun shines off the thin layer of snow on the ground, nearly blinding David as he continues to stare.

His office is empty, the way David likes it to be. There have been a handful of employees and potential employees who have sat opposite him in a leather chair, legs crossed and body language open as they plead their cases. _This job is important to me because blah, blah, blah_ and _I think I would be great for this position because blah, blah, blah._ Nobody ever says something new or interesting these days. It makes the days feel longer than they already did, and it bores David like nothing else in this world. He would rather sit through the countless board meetings than sit through another job interview.

A knock at his office door shakes him from his mind.

“Come in,” he calls, turning away from the window.

Macy, his assistant, pokes her head in through the door. She smiles at him, tucking a piece of light hair behind her ear. She always looks nice, dressed in her skirts and patterned blouses. “Mr. Jacobs? I’m heading home for the day.”

David nods and gives her a small smile, something to ease her workaholic nature. She is almost always working as long as David is, which isn’t healthy for anyone. Recently, David has told her to go home sooner, take more breaks, and she has, so far, been trying to listen. Leaving before 8 p.m. is a big improvement. “Have a good night, Macy.”

She hesitates, fingering the edge of her sleeve. “What about you, Mr. Jacobs? You look like you could use some rest. No offence! I didn’t mean it that way, you know I didn’t.”

Laughing, David shakes his head and waves his hands around, hoping to dispel any ill intent. It’s been 5 long years of working with Macy, he knows how to read the intentions behind her words. “No worries, Macy. I’m going home soon enough. Actually, I think you’ll be pleased to know I’m taking a break this weekend.”

“A break?” Macy gasps, smiling so that her eyes disappear behind her rouged cheeks. “Mr. Jacobs, you’re lying to me.”

“No, no, I’m telling the truth.” Opening one of his desk drawers, he plucks up a thin piece of paper from beneath a tape dispenser. He holds it up for Macy to see. “I’m going to Manhattan for the long weekend. I’ve got a friend who’s been bugging me to see him for three years.”

“Well, good for you,” says Macy, softer in her tone now. “Oh, don’t forget—the chairman wants to know the options for the anthropological journalism board before Tuesday. He’s been leaving all sorts of messages this week.”

The chairman isn’t someone David particularly likes, which is a shame. His uncle is a smart man, good at what he does and likes to brag about it, but he’s never been an interactive, hands-on kind of chairman. When David was being voted into the position of CEO for the company, his uncle had originally voted ‘no’ for…relative issues, they both call it. David knows the real reason why—he was a mess back then, and he was young. Being twenty comes with a lot of mistakes yet to be made, and a CEO doesn’t have room for many mistakes. But David got placed in any way as a dying wish on his family’s behalf, and now there has been a wedge between himself and his uncle ever since.

“Right,” says David. “I’ll get them to him by Monday. Don’t pick up any more of his calls, okay?”

Laughing, Macy takes her leave, voice floating through the hallway as she says, “Oh, thank God, I never want to hear that voice again.”

As long as the days are, David is glad he has someone like Macy to fill the time. Between meetings, interviews, and reading all publishing attempts by his journalists, he doesn’t have much time to spare for trivial conversations. Lately, he’s been trying harder to make room for it with Macy being such a talkative woman and his brother and sister wanting to call more often than they used to.

Picking up his phone, David has half a mind to call his brother right now. He refrains, the awkward feeling of rocks in his stomach making him double think his idea. It’s only been two years since they started talking again, and David still isn’t sure if he’s comfortable with it. Yes, he would love to have a relationship with his siblings again, but the wounds are still fresh despite them being made so long ago.

Drawing his coat and his scarf from the coat stand, he readies himself to brave the harsh Boston cold. He isn’t one for winter, he prefers the spring over all seasons. The mild heat and the gentle breezes offer the best temperatures to take walks in or to read outside on his deck.

His phone is heavy in his pocket, cold even against his gloved hand. The harsh wind chips away at his skin, freezing over his eyelids with every blink and making his lips sting as they grow chapped. Waiting at the side of the road for his driver is only nice in the springtime, maybe fall if he’s feeling generous, but now it is good for nothing but making his mood worse. And when his car finally arrives, something sleek and expensive and low to the ground, David doesn’t think it makes him feel any better. The signs of a wealth he never wanted are as clear as the reflection of his face on the black paint.

Inside the car is warm. David is glad to unwrap his scarf and pull off his gloves. He flexes his fingers and looks out the window, happy for the distraction that is people playing in the snow. Children jump and fall into mounds of cold flakes, smiling and laughing as they push their friends around, feet slipping on the icy sidewalk. David doesn’t remember being that happy when it snowed when he was a kid. Then again, he only remembers bits and pieces of his childhood, and he would prefer to keep it that way.

The harsh ringing of his phone jolts him back to the present. His eyes flit towards the driver, half expecting it to be their phone ringing, but the heavy buzzing against his thigh tells him that it’s his. Pulling out his phone, David barely registers the caller ID before placing the phone to his ear and saying, “Hello?”

A crackling on the other end of the line makes David almost think it is a prank call, then a burst of energy in verbal form breaks through the speaker. _“Davey boy! How’s it goin’, big shot?”_

Relaxing into the leather seat, David can’t help the small smile that breaks out across his face. It’s almost sad, to be reminded of a name he isn’t supposed to have anymore. “Race. What’s with the phone call?”

_“What?”_ Race feigns innocence through the phone. _“I can’t just call up a pal to see how they’re doin’?”_

“No,” says David. “You can’t. You don’t like phone calls Race, that’s one of the first things you ever said to me.”

_“You expect me to be rememberin’ things that happened ten years ago?”_ There’s a defensive lilt to his voice that David dreads to think only shows up when they’re with each other. Is that the effect he has on people, to make them feel the need to be defensive and angry? He wouldn’t be surprised if it were.

His car slows to a stop at a red light. David chances another look outside and finds that he can just barely see his apartment building stretching high up into the sky. “It’s only been six years.”

_“Shit’s all the same to me now. Hey, you still comin’ down for the weekend?”_ Race asks. If David tried hard enough, he would be able to pick up the small sounds of fingers drumming against collarbone in anxious waiting.

Nodding his head along to some long-forgotten melody, David says, “Yes. I’m going to book a room when I get home. I have my flights all booked and most of my stuff is packed—”

There’s a sharp intake of breath, then a push of words. _“A room? Davey, who d’you think I am? I ain’t lettin’ you stay in a hotel. I’ve got a perfectly good spare room with your name on it.”_

“Oh, Race, I couldn’t intrude,” David protests, mostly out of principle.

_“You ain’t intrudin’ if I’m offerin’,”_ Race bites back. _“This way you can meet my boyfriend.”_

His first reaction is to throw up. David lurches towards the window and presses his forehead against it, revelling in the bone-chilling cold that seeps through his skin. It shocks him enough to let out a startled breath and his brain short circuits. “Oh…”

There’s a heavy silence that follows the guttural, unintentional sound. David opens and closes his mouth, unsure of himself. His fingers tremble against the back of his phone, his eyes stuck on the sidewalk as his car slows to a stop in front of his building. His driver says something to him, but it’s murky and clouded as all David can focus on is Race and the fact that he has a boyfriend.

Suddenly, the car door opens. David tumbles outside, landing awkwardly on his feet. Slamming the car door shut, David doesn’t bother to wave or thank his driver. All of his focus is on getting out of the cold and getting off this phone call.

_“Davey,”_ Race says, voice taught and near trembling. From here, David can hear the construction tools roaring to life as a wall is built between them. _“Don’t tell me you’re an asshole, cause I—”_

David doesn’t mean to interrupt when he speaks, but his words fall out of his mouth, useless and hurried. “I’m not! I’m…I’m not an asshole, okay? I’m just—I’m working on it. And I’m surprised, is all. You don’t seem—”

_“Don’t seem what, David?”_

Many times, in his life, David has messed up when he opens his big mouth. Most times, it’s because he sounds entitled or over-educated to the point that he’s talking down on the lesser educated. Which he isn’t, to be clear. David isn’t sure how his voice changes when speaking to different people, and he never means it.

Rushing up the stairs, much too embarrassed to take this call into the crowded elevator, David tries to soothe the situation. “I didn’t mean anything by it, Race. I’m sorry. I promise you; I’m working on…on being better about a lot of things, really. I’m happy for you.”

On the other side of the phone, Race hums, seeming to have gotten over his initial anger, though the hesitant nature in which he says _“So, you don’t mind rooming with boys who like to take it up the ass?”_ shows a lot more than he was hoping.

David has to swallow past a lot of things: nausea, confessions, sobs. It’s much of the same things he has been swallowing for the past twenty-five years. “I don’t mind.”

The conversation ends abruptly after that. As David enters his apartment, Race says that they will see each other tomorrow morning and drops the call. The line beeps in David’s ear until he tosses it onto the couch with a little too much extra force. Shaking from his shoulders to his knees, David stands in the threshold of his apartment, eyes stuck on the packed suitcase thrown onto the coffee table, top open and spilling out his clothes much like how his own guts spill from his chest.

Stuck in the deep wallowing he has made a home for himself in and caught between wanting to cry, throw up, and stop feeling altogether, David has nothing else to do but await his flight.

The night passes by in a blur. He doesn’t sleep well, tosses and turns beneath his silk sheets and wonders why he ever bought them if not to look rich in front of the non-existent lovers he supposedly brings home by the handful. The food in his fridge taunts him in the morning, begging to be eaten only to then be flushed down the toilet minutes later. Instead, he drinks half a dozen cups of water on his way out the door. Later, he will learn to regret it, as he has learnt to regret a great many things.

Flying used to be one of David’s favourite pastimes. Whenever his father would go away on business trips, he would often bring David along to show him the ropes. Then, David would press himself against the window and stare in awe at the clouds that surrounded him. Gently, perhaps a little stern in time, his father would pull him away from the window and turn his face towards a spreadsheet filled with calculations that David didn’t want to understand. Still, it was quality time with his father that neither could escape from, and it brought David moments of clarity in what used to be an imaginative world.

When his feet touch the ground, David can feel parts of himself dropping to the ground and leaving him empty with each step. Dreading what was to come, or perhaps dreading coming back home.

The car waits for him at the curb, the driver unknown but friendly, and David spends the ride pretending to listen as the driver rambles about their wife and children, clearly enamoured. Something soft and aching picks at David’s insides, ripping him clean from the inside out. It is something he has felt for years now, one which he ignores with great skill. One day, maybe on his death bed, David will admit to the pain and find the reasoning behind it.

“Thank you.” He hands the driver a couple of bills and closes the car door behind him.

Standing in front of a small, brick sliver of a house, David fears that his presence will feel colder than the frigid winter chill. A hotel would be a nicer place to stay, free of the stress of Race and his boyfriend and David’s ever waning nausea.

He knocks on the door thrice, taking a step back, luggage heavy in his hand. The sounds of feet pounding against stairs are muffled but clear in the near-silent neighbourhood. David’s heart pounds, ready to find Race with a smile and an insult on his tongue, but the world stills so quickly that David nearly collapses in shock. Inside the house, covered in a soft sweater and fitted jeans, is Jack Kelly.

_April 29 th, 2010, Manhattan_

_2: 45 p.m._

Today, the grass is cool against Jack’s skin, pressing ever so softly against his bare arms. The air has grown hot enough to permit tank tops and shorts, styled with the ever-fashionable flipflops his mother got him for Christmas two years ago. His sunglasses have been thrown somewhere in the field, covered in bugs and dirt by now. But Jack is focused on squinting at the sun and the cool, familiar pressure of Davey’s leg atop his own.

Sprawled across the field as if they had no one else to share it with, Jack spreads his arms out wide and taps his toes together in a strange beat. Most times, when Jack makes songs that sound so terrible that even the birds stop singing, Davey would shove him away and laugh, calling him an idiot for being so musically ignorant. But there’s nothing Jack can do about it, not when sitting next to Davey, the musically inclined.

Jack likes to think Davey is a son of Apollo, dropped to this earth swathed in gold blankets that shone like the sun and humming a tune so melodious that everyone stopped to listen. It would explain both his beauty and his talent, and the mischievous, torturous way Jack’s heart churns when they lock eyes. To find some kind of excuse to chase away the reality of his situation.

“Davey?” Jack asks, words being carried away by the soft breeze that pushes his hair into his eyes. Pushing the strands away, he tries again. “Davey?”

There’s a hum from his left, where Davey sits with a notebook in his lap and a pencil tapping against his thigh. From where his leg is thrown over Jack’s, he can feel the taut pull of muscles as Davey’s leg jumps to a silent beat.

Jack twists his neck to stare at the boy, so close in body yet so far in mind. It’s rare for them to be thinking the same thing, to be on the same playing field when it comes to ideas, but Jack likes it that way. “Do you ever think about it?”

Stilling, Davey lifts his eyes from the page to meet Jack’s, and they sparkle in a way nobody else’s ever has. “Think about what?”

“You know,” says Jack a little softer, raising his eyes from Davey’s soft face to the tree branches above it. “The future.”

In the wind, something shifts. The soft breeze stirs, unnerved, and grows rigid in an instant. Suddenly, Jack is in want of a sweater to wrap himself in its warmth and security. Even the precious pressure of Davey’s leg against his own isn’t enough to stop himself from regretting his words. It happens not often enough as it should, that Jack would regret his choice of words, but everything he says sounds incorrect when saying them to Davey.

Scratching at his temple with the rubber end of his pencil, Davey slowly says, “Well, I’m always thinking about it. Do you?”

Jack shrugs, feigning lethargy. The future is one of a great many unknowns, of which Jack is usually content to live in tandem with, but the idea of an unknown future has irked him recently. “Sometimes.”

In his future, Jack can imagine millions of things. He could be an astronaut, stepping foot onto the moon and planting a great big flag with his face on it. He would befriend aliens and eat moon pies. Or he could be a train conductor, hauling coals and passengers across the country with ease. A flower shop owner who delights in the sweet aroma of nature and the sweetness of home-brewed teas. A famous hockey player with missing teeth and a never-ending string of injuries. Medals and trophies adorning his wall with accomplishments, all gold and carved with his name.

Within each image, there is something wrong with it. He is alone with no easel and no one to call his own. Davey is not by his side, laughing at him or calling him an idiot. Davey isn’t there with his textbooks, note pads and constant humming to fill the void of Jack’s racing mind. On the days when Jack doesn’t wish to do a thing, he does not have Davey on his couch talking his ear off or reading him a chapter from his current favourite book (it never stays the same for more than a week, though Jack knows Davey loves _The Three Musketeers_ more than he probably should).

It’s been so long that Davey has been by his side that Jack has forgotten how to exist without him. He wonders, briefly, if Davey feels the same, though the thought is quickly stripped from his mind. Davey always knows what to do.

“Are you an artist in your future?” asks Davey when the silence had gotten too loud. His note pad and pencil have been set to the side, fingers idly picking at the end of Jack’s tank top.

With a smile that stretches the way a paintbrush runs across a canvas, Jack closes his eyes and says, “Yeah. A great one. Modern-day Picasso without bein’ a dick.”

Smiling along with him, Davey tilts his head a little to the left, dark hair falling into his eyes. He blinks the strands away but doesn’t dare move, not when things have never felt so peaceful. “Would you have galleries?”

“Every single gallery would be filled with my paintings.” And there’s awe in Jack’s voice as he imagines a modern gallery where every wall is covered in his works of art. All of them centred around one image done a million ways: a boy sitting beneath the spiralling stars, notepad and pencil in hand, moonlight carving his features until he looks like a perfect statue. It would all be of Davey— _for_ Davey. A muse without knowing he could possess the nature of one. “And I’d get paid the big bucks, too. A millionaire by the time I’m twenty—that’s where I’ll be.”

Cracking his eyes open, Jack tilts his head to look at Davey. They stare at each other, quiet, basking in each other’s presence. None of the other boys do this, Jack has noticed. They wrestle and roughhouse and yell at each other through headsets and TV screens. Close as brothers still, but not so gentle and soft as Jack likes to think he and Davey are. The silence used to be unnerving between them, something foreign and cold in a way it could never be now. Now, it’s warm and overflowing with more words than they could string together. It brings them comfort when the days are long and their bones ache, to settle into the grass and sit, toes touching, saying nothing but feeling everything.

Jack asks, “What’s your future like?”

Over time, Jack has learnt never to expect anything from Davey. Never expect a straight answer, never try to guess what he is thinking or what he will say. He will never say what is expected of him, will never think the way the rest of the world was taught. The only thing Jack can depend on seeing every day is his reluctant smile—the kind that is reserved for Jack’s eyes only.

“Broadway,” says Davey with a slight croaking of his throat, like the idea of such a dream is killing him. He draws his legs up to his chest, dropping his chin onto his knees. Missing the grounding contact of his leg, Jack turns on his side and presses his thigh against Davey’s foot. “I want to be on Broadway.”

“Yeah?” Jack’s voice is a hoarse whisper. He wonders if, when Davey sings a ballad on stage, Davey might be thinking of him. When he sings himself to tears, will Jack be on his mind? Or will he think of a pretty girl who holds his heart in her hands, fingers curled oh-so lovingly around it, caging it from heartbreak? “Standin’ ovations and all?”

There’s a dreamy look that passes over Davey’s face, one that takes him away from Jack for just a moment. And within that moment, Jack knows true fear. That deep, aching feeling that surrounds his heart and squeezes so tight he forgets how to breathe. In his mind, Jack reaches out for Davey, fingertips brushing against his nose, then his cheek, jaw, shoulders, down his side until he clutches at Davey’s fingers, desperate to pull him back down to earth. And Jack realizes he never wants Davey to leave his side, not even for a moment.

Stretching out his hand, Davey runs his fingers over the back of Jack’s hand. Tracing the veins and callouses and paint stains with a careful carelessness that only Davey would dare to possess. It brings Jack back down to earth just in time to hear Davey say, “I’d like some standing ovations. You’ll be front row, won’t you? Clapping the loudest?”

Knowing that Davey wants him for as long as possible, too, makes the constant thrill of futures dim down to only one in his head: a life with Davey that only ends when the sun explodes and the stars don’t exist anymore.

“You’ll still remember me when you’re a big shot?” Jack means it to be a joke, but his fear comes through in trembling vowels and shuddering consonants. His tongue feels heavy and twisted against his mouth, pushing clumsily against his teeth.

There’s a small flicker of confusion that dances over Davey’s face, then he says, “I could never forget you, Jack Kelly.”

Under the sun, sinking deeper and deeper into the grass, Jack and Davey link their pinkies together and waste the rest of the day away.

_January 19 th, 2020, Manhattan_

_9:12 a.m._

In many dreams, Jack has found Davey’s face. The young one, fifteen years old and smooth as it has ever been, bright-eyed with a head covered in dark whisps of soft hair. His dream self is fifteen again, too, and laughs along with the sound of Davey’s make-shift songs and clumsy beats. Through a field, they run, careless and happy, happier than Jack feels he has any right to be in the modern world. The only reason Jack can write this off as not being a dream is that David Jacobs stands in front of him, twenty-five years old and dressed in brand name clothing.

Nothing fits, and yet it all seems to make sense. Davey’s long features have grown into something sharp and narrow, drilled to stand-offish perfection, and his limbs have grown to be the right side of his body. Even in his fancy clothing, Jack can still see him as a kid, stuck in his plaid shirts and awful sweater vests. And the world doesn’t seem to quite fit this version of Davey, where he fits into everything while sticking out in every scenario Jack can picture.

An ache opens inside of his chest, deep and lurking, drawing off of the indescribable mix of feelings that tighten his chest and stick in his throat. He assumes he made some kind of noise, something softly strangled and delicately manic, because Davey is looking at him like he has grown two heads, and for a split second, Jack is terrified that he’s the only one going through a crisis. _Am I so easily forgotten?_ He wonders.

“Aye,” Race calls from somewhere within their home, drawl clouded with excitement. Something of which Jack always thought he would share when coming face-to-face with Davey, but he finds himself devoid of any other feeling than the crushing ache in his chest. “S’that Davey?”

_It is,_ Jack wants to call back, among the many other things he wants to scream. All these years, he has been rewriting a script inside his mind, crafting it to perfection for the day he met Davey again. Now, standing in front of a man who has both made his heart and broke it to pieces, his mind is blank of the ten-page script.

And Jack wonders why Davey hasn’t spoken up yet. His eyes are wide, trembling just like his hands, and Jack wonders about that, too. But his tongue feels heavy in his mouth, weighing down his jaw and making it feel as though he were about to start sinking.

Stuck in his daze, Jack barely registers when Race shoulders past him to wrap his arms around Davey. Deep inside Jack’s chest, clutched around a piece of his heart he once thought was dead and gone, tiny nails dig themselves into that piece and scrape. His chest aches and pains like it did so long ago, and he has half a mind to tear Race away from Davey and take his place. But this…Jack knows this isn’t his Davey, not wearing those clothes and not with such trembling hands.

Davey has closed his eyes, sinking deep into the warmth of Race’s hug. And Jack knows, on a very personal, very emotional level, that Race’s hugs are some of the best hugs one could ever receive. They wrap their arms around one another as if letting go would guarantee they would never see each other again. When they pull back, Jack is almost sad it’s over. He welcomed the distraction, the excuse to stare at Davey like he was a science experiment. But Jack still can’t believe his eyes, and his heartbeat is getting louder and louder as the seconds pass by.

“Jack-a-boy,” says Race, clapping a hand on Davey’s shoulder. His smile is beaming, brighter and hotter than the sun. “This is Davey, that guy from Boston I keep talking about.”

_Oh,_ Jack thinks, and he’s sure his mouth isn’t working. A couple things click in his head: Race’s circulating topic of this rich guy back in Boston who he talks to and the expensive gifts that show up late for Christmas morning with a nicely printed note from one David. And what is Jack supposed to think when he sees the name, David? Not once in his life has Davey ever been ‘David’ for him, it never fit, and it still doesn’t. Not even dressed in fancy clothing will he ever be anything other than Davey.

Jack doesn’t know when he does it, but he sticks out his hand and says, “Hey, Davey.”

It’s a lot harder to say than Jack imagined it would be, and his lost script for this very moment has now been torn to shreds. He used to jump between wanting to hug Davey at first sight, or punching him. Now, he doesn’t know how to react, or if he should even mention to Race that they already know each other.

“Jack,” Davey responds, slotting his hand into Jack’s. Their palms fit together nicely, cold against warm, and Jack wishes it didn’t mean so much to him. But Davey quickly pulls his hand away and shoves it into his coat pocket, as if the contact had burned him. “Hi.”

From somewhere deep within their house, Spot calls out to the small crowd, “Close the fuckin’ door! You’re lettin’ all the cold air in.”

“That’s our cue,” Jack says, trying to laugh as he steps back inside the apartment and away from the door. His tongue has untwisted itself, allowing Jack to put on the façade that Davey has put on himself.

Turning his back on Davey, Jack rushes up the stairs, two at a time. Facing away from Davey hurts, the way it hurts to touch a freshly lit flame, but Jack doesn’t trust himself to look at his long-lost friend for much longer. He fears he might do something he will regret. And so, Jack shoulders his way past Spot, who waits, hiding his anxiousness behind a twisted hand towel, at the top of the stairs. He goes to the kitchen for a glass of water, and only when the first few drops spill onto his shirt does he realizes he’s shaking. Clenching his fists, Jack wills away the gross desire to punch something or to scream into his pillow.

Drinking from his glass of water, Jack leans against the arm of the couch, hoping to play off the nonchalance he was known for in the olden days. Back when he wasn’t thinking about his art buyers backing out on him, or the crushing weight of debt. Back when he had finally been able to get through a day without wondering about Davey Jacobs and where he went.

Spot holds out his hand for Davey to shake, and Jack knows, just by watching, that their hands don’t fit together the way his and Davey’s do—did. And all Jack really wants is to push Spot aside and slot his hand back with Davey’s, to feel the cool press of his skin and to ease the shaking of his fingers. Then, he wants to scream and tear out his hair, let the tears spill from his eyes like a dam had burst, all while never letting go of Davey’s hand. Maybe then, his life will start to make sense.

“Race talks ‘bout you a lot,” says Spot, in a voice that Jack knows to be his judgment voice. “I’m his boyfriend, Spot.”

Davey’s swallow is so loud, Jack bets astronauts can hear it from the moon or mars, wherever they go these days. At the least, they can hear it from the stars he loved to stare at when he was a kid. He wonders why Davey suddenly blanches, why he starts to shake again, and why Race hangs back, hands in his pockets and watching the interaction with a narrowed gaze. As if in wait for an attack.

“Cool,” says Davey, taking his hand away from Spot’s and shoving it back into his coat pocket. His smile wobbles. “Glad to know Race finally found someone.”

Stepping into the conversation, all drops of a fight have fallen off of Race’s shoulders, and Jack eases into the arm of the couch. “Hey, hey, what do you mean, ‘finally’? I am a damn collectable Davey, okay? A prized possession.”

When Davey laughs, Jack feels like the stars have exploded. Their stardust rains down on his head, dousing him in endorphins and tears and something so utterly soft it can only be his velvet heart. It has been ten years since Jack has heard that laugh, and he is seeing flickers of a younger Davey in place of this older one—small and full of joy with a pencil and a note pad in hand. It’s like he is being haunted by the past he so yearns for, and Jack slips against the arm of the couch. His water spills from his cup, soaking his socks right through.

Looking up, Jack finds all eyes on him. He only meets Davey’s, wishing to see more than a wall behind them. He can imagine himself staring into those eyes forever, constantly searching for every single emotion Davey has ever felt and wishing to remedy the bad ones, to be the reason for the good ones. But those are dreams for a younger boy who still had hope, not for today’s Jack, who is watching a stranger who has stolen Davey’s face.

“Sorry,” he mutters, grateful to excuse himself from Davey’s presence, wishing beyond belief that Davey’s eyes follow him every step into the kitchen.

There’s the faint hum of conversation that Jack blocks out as he empties and fills his glass over and over again. The cold has seeped in through his socks, soggy against the soles of his feet, but Jack blocks that out, too. Covered in stardust, his velvet heart hanging out of his chest, held up by a thin string, Jack wishes desperately for Davey to put it back where it belongs. And when a hand lands itself on his shoulder, he nearly convinces himself that Davey had read his mind. But when he turns, it’s to Race and the mild annoyance that is always plastered onto his skin.

“What’s wrong with you?” Race hisses. “I know Davey’s kind of an asshole, but that don’t mean you can—”

Jack blinks. Water rushes from the tap, filling up his glass until it overflows, spilling over his hand in cold waves. “What? An asshole?”

For this, Race looks a little uneasy, as if he hates to admit it. “Yeah…Davey’s an asshole, alright? At least, he was an asshole yesterday.”

And Jack had never thought of that—the possibility that Davey Jacobs was anything less than a perfect musical prodigy. But that had been ten years ago when Davey wasn’t capable of doing anything wrong in Jack’s eyes. If Davey had killed a man, Jack would have joined him as they ran from the police.

“No, that’s not it.” And Jack nearly divulges everything right there, but then the night would turn weird and Jack isn’t good with weird moods. “It’s just…we used to go to school together. That’s all.”

They study each other for a moment, which passes like an hour in a boring lecture hall. Jack isn’t sure what he’s supposed to say now, with Davey either upstairs or sitting on the couch just out of view, talking with Spot about God knows what. He isn’t sure there is another focus in his brain today other than Davey with his dark hair, Davey with his sharp nose, Davey with his brand name clothing, DaveyDaveyDaveyDaveyDavey.

Finally, Race nods his head, slow and precise, in the type of terrifying way that he never is. “Alright. There’s a story you ain’t tellin’ me.”

First, Jack wonders if it really is that obvious, but that’s a stupid thing to wonder. Of course, Race knew—the world shook and the cracks beneath his feet are proof that there is something monumentally emotional happening in Manhattan today, and it all surrounds itself around Davey’s mysterious reappearance. If it is on the news tomorrow, then maybe Jack can convince himself that this is real life and not some elaborate dream.

When Davey appears behind Race, cheeks flushed and free of his winter coat, Jack slams off the tap. Placing his cup down in the sink, he wipes his wet hand against his jeans, trying to hide the shaking that returned to his body. He tries to meet Davey’s eyes, but he avoids it, looking at the upper cabinets behind Jack’s head or focusing on the back of Race’s head. Jack can remember a time where all they would do was look at each other for hours on end, and he wonders how it ended up like this.

_May 3 rd, 2010, Manhattan_

_4:24pm_

Davey’s bedroom has always been warm, like it refused to match the seasons. On warm winter nights, or when fall has just begun to nip at his toes, the warmth is welcomed and beautiful. Davey would often curl up in his blankets and relish the warmth that spreads through his body. But on muggy summer nights, Davey could do without the warmth. Rid of his blankets, Davey would lay on his bed like a starfish, stuck in his t-shirts and boxer shorts, wishing for the sun to come up and for his heat rush to leave him.

His room only grows warmer with Jack Kelly in it. In the summer, Jack likes to bring his own heat into the early smoking house of the Jacobs’, and today is no different. He sits with his back pressed against Davey’s headboard, clad in his shorts and a t-shirt, with a sketch pad thrown on his lap. A pencil, dulled at the tip and nearly missing an eraser, jumps lazily between his fingers, as if debating whether or not to take the jump.

Together, sharing the small, warm space, Davey tries to avoid looking at his best friend. He lays on his back, horizontal on the bed with his legs dangling off the edge of the mattress. If Davey had an imagination, he would picture himself dangling bait above an angry pool of sharks, or perhaps he would be hanging off a cliff's edge, seconds away from falling into the abyss. He wonders, briefly, if Jack’s imagination is kinder than his.

It happens a lot like this—after school hang out sessions with nothing to talk about. Though they never really needed something to talk about, they were always comfortable to simply bask in each other’s presence. Normally, they sit out in the field behind Jack’s house, staring at the sky and watching as the clouds turn into stars. But today was too hot to stay outside, though being inside doesn’t feel any better. Even if spring has started, even if Davey still calls it summer, the heat is too much to handle.

“Do you think the sun hates us?” Jack asks after a couple minutes of silence. He lazily drags his pencil against his sketch pad, eyebrows furrowed.

Davey twists his neck to look at Jack, hair falling into his eyes. He swipes it away clumsily, lazy like the strokes of Jack’s pencil, wanting to clear his eyes so that Jack’s face is a clear picture. Looking at Jack has been Davey’s favourite hobby for a while now, much longer than any part of him would like to confess.

“Why would she hate us?” Davey finds himself asking, the itch of a smile curling his lips.

At that, Jack looks up from his sketch pad. His eyebrows soften as his eyes land on Davey’s face, body relaxing immediately. And it makes Davey wonder, it always does, if it means anything. “The suns a girl?”

“Yeah.” Davey nods. “She’s too bright not to be.”

“Not to mention scary.”

Davey loves it when Jack plays along, feels the thrill of understanding rush through him. It makes him feel like he can do anything, as long as Jack is by his side, happy to join the fun. And Davey has only ever felt like this with Jack, which shouldn’t be such a revelation, but Davey suddenly feels dizzy.

Despite himself, and the many other things that stick to his tongue, waiting impatiently for their turn to be said, Davey finds himself asking, “Are you scared of girls?”

Returning himself to his sketch pad, Jack frowns a little. His strokes become broader, more confident with each scratch, and Davey falls into the sound of lead against paper. “I ain’t scared of much, but I am scared of you.”

Sitting up on the bed, Davey slips his legs beneath him and presses his weight onto his knees. Something spirals within him—this constant weight in his chest that makes him wonder if Jack really likes being his friend, or if he doesn’t have anyone else to turn to. And Davey has never found himself to be threatening or any kind of scary. He has always tried his best to be unassuming, hidden within the shadows of the world, only to be shown for his talent.

What Davey wants to say is: _have I done something wrong?_ Or maybe he wants to say: _Do you really hate me so much?_ Either way, Davey’s tongue has been weighed down by iron bricks, and the brain he so prides himself on has fractured, leaving him with a jumble of words that he never meant to say. “Are you really scared of me, Jack?”

It makes him sound vulnerable in a way he swore to his father he would never be. His limbs feel heavy with the pain of being scared, of the shock of being called scary, and he isn’t quite convinced that the world is still spinning.

The sound of lead against paper abruptly stops. Davey wishes it didn’t—wishes it could keep going on forever, and he could forget today ever happened. Maybe, if he keeps his mouth shut, they could move past this and keep talking about the sun.

“Davey?” Jack swallows, loud and dry and it sounds like it hurts. He catches Davey’s eyes, and they hold a lot of feelings Davey has never seen in them before. It makes his heart skip a couple of beats. “I ain’t scared of you for—you’re anythin’ but scary, Davey, I promise. It’s just…” he licks his lips, bites his bottom lip and looks down at his sketch pad. His fingers dance over the edge of the paper, then he tears out a sheet with precision. Jack holds it out for Davey to take, and it shakes in his hand. “You’re so damn pretty, Davey Jacobs, and it’s scaring me.”

The drawing is beautiful, but Davey never saw something ugly that came from Jack’s fingers. A sky littered with sketched stars, surrounded by sprawling tree branches. In a grass field, a boy with a structured nose and a careful mess of hair sits beneath the stars, staring upwards, a pencil and note pad in hand. There’s attention to detail that makes Davey’s breath catch and his world shakes beneath his knees. A hallowing of his cheeks, the tired marks beneath his curious eyes, and the precious whisp of each strand of hair.

Davey looks up at Jack, who is already watching him. The room is quiet, save for the closing of a car door outside that they both miss. Caught up in their small world they created for each other with their bare hands, nothing can touch them while inside this room.

“Jack…?” Davey doesn’t know what to say. His brain has stopped working, shutting down like a city that lost its power. His hands shake and his eyes run all over Jack’s face, trying desperately to find one thing they would like to focus on, but Davey has always loved everything about Jack’s face.

With a lop-sided smile, Jack says, “That’s how I see you, Davey. Just as pretty as the stars—more, even. I don’t get how you can’t see that yourself.”

Dizzy and drenched in his own feelings, Davey clutches the drawing to his chest and leaps over without thinking. Taking Jack’s face in one hand, Davey presses their lips together in a kiss. It isn’t any good. Their lips don’t meet the way they should and, when Jack kisses back, it’s clumsy and rushed and trembling. But Jack’s lips are chapped and warm against his own, hot like the sun and more than that.

Pulling back, Davey can feel his heartbeat thunder through his body. Not a single part of him isn’t thrilled with what he just did, or terrified of the reaction. With the drawing pressed close to his heart, Davey stares into Jack’s eyes, searching for a sign, though he isn’t sure what he wants to see in them.

“Jack?” Davey’s voice wavers in uncertainty, scared and wondering about what comes next.

Surging up from the headrest, Jack claims Davey in another kiss, and this time it blows Davey’s mind. Their lips slot together perfectly, as though they were always meant to be pressed together. Moving against one another, it feels oh so right in all the ways Davey used to dream about. When Jack’s arms loop around Davey’s waist, securing him and making him feel protected, Davey thinks he could do this forever.

It comes as a rush, then: graduating high school with Jack’s hand in his; driving off to college together; graduating from college; buying their first house together; going on stupid, meaningless dates together; adopting kids and a couple of dogs; growing older and older as the years go by, always hand-in-hand and side-by-side. And Davey wants this forever. Wants Jack forever, or as long as he’ll have him. No matter how long, Davey will cherish it and remember it as the best moments of his life.

When his bedroom door swings open, Davey nearly jumps ten feet in the air.

“David?” It’s his father’s voice, deep and harrowing, filled with something close to shame and Davey thinks he’ll never be able to forget it.

Pushing Jack away from him, Davey spins to face his father, breathing heavily, eyes wide with terror. This isn’t supposed to be happening. It never went like this in his dreams.

“Dad,” Davey breathes out, heart beating out of control. “What are—”

His father marches into the room, eyes narrowed and stern. He grabs Jack by the arm, his grip tight and twisting his skin so much that Jack cries out either in shock or in pain, Davey doesn’t know. Pulling Jack off the bed and towards the door, his father says, “Jack Kelly, you disgust me! Kissing my son like that, in my house?”

Davey jumps off the bed and scrambles after his father, reaching out to hold onto Jack and bring him back into the euphoric paradise they built together.

“Dad, please,” begs Davey, tears in his eyes. The beautiful drawing falls to the ground at his feet, forgotten in the mess of emotions.

Turning back to look at Davey, his father’s eyes narrow even more, and Davey freezes in his tracks. How is he supposed to fight against his own father? “You’ve done enough already, David. I’ll make sure you never see Jack Kelly again.”

And it feels like someone is tearing the world right out from Davey’s feet. Left alone to fall, endlessly, into the deep depths of space. Not even the stars have stuck around to witness his fall from grace. Disgust curls tight in his belly, and the cloud already begins to fog up his mind. But he meets Jack’s eyes one last time, and he reaches out his hand, hoping to soothe the peril he finds in them. Jack twists and turns in Davey’s father's grip, reaching out his own hand in an attempt to grab hold of Davey’s fingers and make it last forever.

The door closes behind Davey’s father, blocking Davey out from the only boy he had ever loved.

_January 20 th, 2020, Manhattan_

_6:39 pm_

In his twenty-five years of life, David has become an expert at avoiding confrontation. He only ever comes face-to-face with confrontation at work, but once the workday is over, David prefers to avoid what life wishes to throw at him. After all, he has learned that life doesn’t care much about his feelings. Sitting up in Race’s spare room is his second attempt at avoiding Jack Kelly. Staying on opposite ends of the room had been his first, but it was difficult to do in the small home without being questioned.

Though Manhattan was sure to be filled with memories that would drag David to the grave, he hadn’t even thought that Jack would still be there. He assumed Jack had achieved his dream of becoming a widely famous artist, travelling around the world to sell his paintings, and setting up popular galleries like he always talked about. It was the main reason David had distanced himself from the arts, hoping to never see a beautiful painting made by the boy he left behind.

Something has never shaken his world as much as seeing Jack again. It was as though the sky had opened up and the stars were falling to the ground, points sharp enough to pierce through his skull. He almost wished they would—it would be less painful than looking into Jack’s eyes. And, though they may be older and much more tired, his eyes have kept the same childish gleam in them, even as they shake.

Running his hands over his face, David lets out a long breath. This trip was supposed to be relaxing, something fun so he can, as Race likes to say, ‘get this stick outta your ass and fuckin’ laugh’. David hasn’t laughed much.

A knock at his door startles him. He barely has time to grunt before the door is being pushed open and Race comes into the room.

“Hope you’re decent,” he says, though he’s already staring David down with no shame. “I don’t wanna see your dick.”

David frowns. “I don’t want you seeing my dick, either.”

Pressing his back against the wall, Race knocks his head back and grins. The picture of nonchalance. “Good. Listen, me an’ Spot are goin’ out for a date in a few minutes. Don’t tell him, but I totally forgot it was happenin’ tonight—he’d kick my ass. You gonna be okay with the sad man downstairs?”

In truth, he isn’t okay with this at all. The stars keep breaking through the roof and planting themselves into the ground around his feet. But David doesn’t want to admit just how shaken he is, or just how close he is to throwing up his guts every few seconds. At some point, he may throw up his stomach acid just for something to do. He wants to say many things to Race at that moment, but his trouble admitting to his past is catching up with him.

And he wonders if Race would judge him for his childhood. Maybe he would judge him for his teenage years, where nothing had gone right, and the world had changed. Then he mentally slaps himself hard enough to sting, because why would Race judge him for something he partakes in himself? Though, their experiences have differed in outcomes.

What David says, in the end, is, “Why wouldn’t I be okay?”

There’s an odd tilt to Race’s head that show’s his disbelief, and David wishes he were easier to lie to. “Jack told me you two knew each other back in the day. That true?”

David’s mind runs empty. What did Jack tell Race? Did he explain their entire history, or just bits and pieces? Did he mention any details at all? David has half a mind to jump out the window and end it all, as long as he can get out of this horridly terrifying situation he has found himself in. The world was never supposed to be this complicated, and life wasn’t supposed to hurt so much.

“Yes,” David says, and the way his voice wavers is a big enough tell of his cowardice. “Back in high school. We had, uh…a falling out, I guess.”

Nodding slowly, Race pushes himself off the wall and pats David on the shoulder. He says, “I’d say I’d stay back to help you out, but I don’t want to. No offence.”

David shakes his head and looks down at his feet, hoping to find answers within his grey socks. “I don’t blame you.”

When Race leaves with Spot stuck by his side, David stays in his room. His feet tap against the floor anxiously, fingers drumming against his wrist. In his head, there is some angry tune that irks him, scratching at his ear like nails on a chalkboard. He hasn’t had a tune in his head in years, and its appearance is anything but comforting. Only Jack has ever filled his head with songs so easily.

In reality, David understands that he cannot hide in Race’s spare room forever. At some point, he will get hungry or have to use the bathroom. Facing Jack is inevitable, but David wants to kid himself into thinking he could wait it out. It only takes fifteen minutes—or has it been an hour?—before David leaves the spare room and heads downstairs. With his heart in his throat, David attempts to keep his head down, aiming on getting a glass of water and maybe a sandwich before locking himself back in the spare room.

He gets as far as opening the fridge before he hears Jack’s voice.

“You hungry?”

David’s back straightens and, suddenly, his appetite has run off. Gripping the fridge door tightly, David wants to pretend that hearing Jack’s voice isn’t both nauseating and harmonious. It isn’t supposed to feel like this, David thinks. Someone, once, told him that facing your past is the only door in which you can enter the future. They said it would be liberating to look the past in the eye and tell it that it no longer has a hold on him. David is…he’s _good_ now.

“I was,” says David, not daring to turn around.

The silence that follows them is thick, filled with sharp edges and cold hands. Freezing fingertips brush against the back of David’s neck, making him shiver. If this is what breaking through into the future feels like, he isn’t so sure he wants to escape the present. All he would like to do is get a glass of water and lock himself back in the guest room.

“Do you wanna get some dinner?” Jack asks, hesitant and yet somehow overeager. He sounds like a child who doesn’t want to spoil their surprise birthday but can’t help to ask about their presents. “There’s uh...” he snaps his fingers, mulling over his thoughts, and David has never witnessed this side of Jack before. The kind who is careful with his words and thinks before speaking. “This Italian place we could go t’ get some food. We could order in, too, y’know, so you don’t have t’ go out in the cold.”

It’s sweet, the way Jack remembers how much David hates the cold, but it makes David want to collapse into a ball and block out the world. He’s not supposed to care like this—either of them. They weren’t made to care so much. It’s not right and it’s not good.

Closing the fridge, David shakes his head. He doesn’t turn around, afraid of what he will do if he sees Jack’s face. Suddenly, he wishes that Race had stayed instead of going out on his date. He wishes that he didn’t have such a reaction to Race’s having a boyfriend. Wishes that Jack wasn’t behind him, being friendly and acting as though they were just old high school friends that grew apart instead of two boys who were forced apart without any closer.

David says calmly, “I’m fine just making a sandwich, thank you.”

“Alright, stop it.” Jack reaches out and grasps David’s elbow, pulling so that David has no choice but to turn and face him. “What’s the matter with you, huh?”

It’s not often David’s brain malfunctions but staring right into Jack’s eyes does the trick. He feels himself falling back into his childhood, running around with Jack and doing nothing all day. It’s all Jack, everything happy that David used to feel, it all came from him. But none of those happy feelings come back today—there is no warmth in Jack’s touch, only sharp edges that pierce through his skin. Only the sharpness of his eyes, his mouth, his jaw, his words. The way his anger leeks through, so happy to be free, and David doesn’t have the shields strong enough to keep it at bay.

Shaking his head, David rips his elbow from Jack’s grip, pointedly looking away. “Nothing’s the matter. I just want a sandwich.”

“You know that ain’t what I meant.” Jack’s voice is sharp, too, quick and to the point. He still speaks like he used to, grammatically, but there’s still an edge of growness to it that makes it harder to laugh at. “Davey—”

“It’s David,” he corrects curtly, trying to keep the sharpness out of his own voice. Fighting isn’t going to straighten his defences.

“It ain’t ever been David,” is Jack’s off-hand reply, but his words are heavy and make David suck in a breath. “Stop playin’ this weird game of yours and just—could you fuckin’ look at me?”

He can’t. If he does look, David knows he will collapse, and every perfectly placed brick will come crashing down on him. His life and the lies he has wrapped around himself like a warm blanket will choke him, forcing him to acknowledge the things he has pushed back ever since he was fifteen, freshly sixteen when things started to change in his mind. When the sight of himself in the mirror was enough to make him vomit, or when he would catch the memorabilia he so wanted to plaster on his walls and would end up crying in the alleyway before work.

David doesn’t want to feel weak, and that is all Jack makes him feel.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” says David. He sniffs and ignores the way Jack shifts in an effort to catch his eye. “I’m not playing any games.”

“No, right, my apologies,” Jack says in a voice that means he really isn’t sorry. It makes David’s jaw clench. “You’re just bein’ a dick.”

The words hit like a dull knife to the chest. David has been called a dick enough times in his life to warrant a thick skin to the insult, but Jack makes it hurt just a little bit. He has never wanted to be a dick to Jack, not even as he stands in this kitchen after a failed attempt to make a sandwich. Not even as his hands shake and the swell of anger fills his belly and warms his blood. Though he hates them, David has always been good at winning arguments.

Jack continues talking before David has a chance to open his mouth. “I’m trynna be friendly here, Davey, you could at least help me out. The way you’re actin’…it’s like I don’t even recognize you.”

This time, David turns his face to look Jack in the eyes. He steels his nerves and forces the bile down. Now is not the time to be a weak child who doesn’t know how to stand up for himself. “It’s been ten years, Jack. You shouldn’t recognize me.”

“Like hell, I shouldn’t.” Jack scoffs, and it’s something ugly that wraps around his throat like an angry snake. “I knew you best, Davey. And I don’t care how long it’s been, you shouldn’t be someone you never were.”

David says it before he can stop to think about it. “What, like you?”

Screwing up his face, Jack tries to play it off like he doesn’t care about David’s opinion, when, really, that must have been the only thing he cared about when they were kids. “What’s that s'posed to mean?”

“Nothing,” says David, because it really meant nothing at all. David said it stupidly, brashly without wanting it to mean a damn thing. No matter how much David wants to convince himself, he never wants Jack to change. He never has. “Listen, I’m going upstairs and—”

Jack jumps forward and wraps his fingers around David’s wrist, pulling him back as he makes to leave the kitchen. David stumbles over his feet, knocking his shoulder against Jack’s, and the slim contact is like an avalanche racing down a mountain. He is quick to pull his wrist away, but Jack is even quicker to grab at his other one.

“You left me once,” Jack says, voice low and taught, as though the mere thought is enough to break him. “You ain’t doin’ it again.”

This time, David is careful when he peels Jack’s fingers from his wrist. His own fingers shake with each passing second, breath heavy in his chest and caving in on him. He is thrown back into that night when he left for good, knowing he will never return. He made two promises that night: to never forget Jack Kelly and to never see him again. Now, ten years later as he holds Jack’s fingers in his own, he isn’t sure whether he made the right ones.

Slowly, David says, “I didn’t have a choice.”

“Bullshit,” Jack scoffs, pulling his fingers away. He stares at them as though he can’t believe they’ve been held.

“I didn’t. You honestly think I would’ve left you?” David shakes his head and laughs something weak, trying to force himself to be calm and collected. But it’s difficult when nothing is going the way he planned and the world is shifting around him, world views and religious hymns splitting apart in his brain. Everything hurts, the way everything used to be serene. The way everything used to feel so right.

Jack’s eyebrows jump in angry disbelief. He looks like the moon after a rough fight with the sun. “Yeah, well, whatever, Davey. I never saw you put up a fight to stay. It’s like you fuckin’ _wanted_ to leave me behind.”

When David laughs, it’s ugly. Filled with so many painful words and sharp knives, ready to be thrown in Jack’s direction. But then the tears spring to his eyes, and every foul thing he wanted to say disappears. Fighting back the tears, David says, “Really? _Really?_ You’re an idiot, Jack Kelly. An idiot and an asshole. You weren’t there that day, you didn’t see anything. Leaving you wasn’t easy for me—you were the best God damn thing to ever happen to me! But how am I supposed to go against my father’s wishes? How was I supposed to disappoint him more than I already had?”

The tears spill-free down his cheeks, hot and fast and ugly. David digs the palm of his hands against his cheeks to stop the flow and nearly claws out his eyelashes in an attempt to push away the tears. All while Jack watches, helpless and silent like a young kid watching his parents fight.

“Looking at you…” David falters, words twisting into knots on his tongue. “It’s not right, Jack.”

Jack blinks slowly, trying to wrap his mind around David’s words. For a moment, David is worried he isn’t speaking English, instead, his tongue runs through various other languages he picked up at his father’s insistence. Then Jack says with small heat, “What?”

David swallows the star that has lodged itself in his throat. Its points tear at his insides, shaking as it fights to stay in its place. He has never swallowed a star before, and he thinks this might be why.

“ _We’re_ not right,” David stresses, the words having been burned into his mind since he was fifteen. Earlier than that, but he never cared before he left. Today, the words feel weak, and he has trouble convincing himself that they make sense. “Jack, don’t you get it?”

Shaking his head, Jack takes a step back. Takes a step away from David. The step feels like ten, twenty, thirty—any amount of distance that can keep them apart for longer. And David has half a mind to wonder why the world is so cruel to them before he realizes that the only one being cruel is himself. The world is only as cruel as its people. Someone has to be the bad guy in this situation, and if playing that role means keeping Jack away from the disgusting thoughts that David wraps himself in every day, then so be it.

“I don’t get it,” says Jack with his trembling tone and his steel eyes. All of a sudden, he looks so much older, wounded and worried and angry. He takes another step away. “I don’t get it, and…and I don’t think I wanna. Just…fuckin’ make your sandwich, Davey.”

Jack turns on his heel and stalks out of the kitchen. Footsteps heavy enough to break through the floor and drag him under. If David had any sort of imagination, even an inch of Jack’s, he would picture horrific things to match the horrific tearing of his heart. Perhaps, if he dared to think it, the stars could break through him as they fall to the floor. Or the earth could wrap itself around David’s legs, black tendrils of something oil-like and slick, trapping him and pulling him down, down—deep into the earth with no way out. He could watch as Jack continues to walk away, leaving him behind, alive and well if only a little stung.

David wonders, briefly, as Jack disappears from view, if it felt this bad the first time.

_May 8 th, 2010, Manhattan_

_11:12 am_

The sky is blue in a way that it never has been before. Blue like the middle of the sea, trembling in turmoil and dangerous urges to swallow up whoever comes near. Blue like a sad painting from the days where blue was important—more so than red. Clouds whisp through the sky, stretched thin and chopped into small pieces. There are no birds, no songs to be sung and for Davey to lean into. Instead, he listens to the heavy footsteps crashing against the concrete sidewalk and the shuffling of a suitcase. His suitcase.

Wheels scratching against pavement. The muffled opening of a front door, steps away. A creaking trunk. The heft and jump of the car as a suitcase is thrown into it.

Davey pictures all these things in his mind, though he pays no attention to their actual happenings. Sitting in the back of the car, curled into himself as if to hide from his horrid reality, Davey thinks about Jack. Jack, who lives two blocks over. Jack who, supposedly, has been locked in his room at his father’s request. Jack, who Davey feels he will never see again, and the mere thought of it slowly, painstakingly, tears his heart to pieces with a precision he might find impressive on a different day.

He tries not to think about what is happening. Where he is being taken, against his will but without the immediate fight he assumed he would have. And Davey knows a lot for a boy his age, fifteen isn’t young anymore but he still feels like he’s seven years old. Davey knows that where he is going isn’t a nice place—used to change him from what monstrous disaster he has shown himself to be. But Davey never thought it would happen to him, a Jewish boy in Manhattan who has always abided by his father’s rules. He always thought conversion therapy was a Christian thing.

Orthodox methods, he remembers his father saying, were the true ways to live. Except, Davey knows they do not live the true, Orthodox way. Davey knows their Orthodox methods only apply to him and the people he decided to kiss.

Davey has only ever kissed one person in his life, and he wanted it to be Jack. Needed it to be Jack because it would feel wrong if it were anybody else. At that moment, Davey has never felt so right. He could imagine his life, filled with love and happiness and joy in ways he never felt before, and it all happened with Jack. Jack Kelly was, and still is, his happiness. Today, Davey leaves that happiness behind.

When his father slides into the front seat, knees knocking against the steering wheel, Davey lowers his eyes. Pushing back the vomit that sits heavily in his throat and begging the tears to dry themselves, knowing their breath of life will only serve to make this car ride even worse. Fingers tightening on his arms. The dig of the seatbelt pressed flush against his chest.

His father turns back to look at Davey, a frown fixed on his face, but his eyes are almost warm. “You have always been a perfect son to me, David. You know that.”

Davey does know that, but it doesn’t make him feel any better. It still feels as though the skin of his chest has been peeled off, the cold breeze nipping at whatever lays beneath it. His heart, open and on display for the world to see, is split into four equal pieces, each pumping out of synch. Davey’s arms are the only things keeping his heart in his chest rather than on the floor, waiting for his father to step on it. Crush it, once and for all under the guise of being kind.

“I only want what’s best for you,” his father continues. “If we can just fix this one thing, everything will be alright.”

Fix him. His father wants to fix him. As if he is some kind of broken toy, close to being throwing in the trash but being salvaged at the last moment. Like a broken-down car or a phone you have to put in a bowl of rice. It makes Davey feel like a sickness, and he twists even further into himself. Digs the seatbelt deeper into his chest until he is certain it will leave a mark. Curls his fingers into his palm and revels in the sharp cut of his nails digging deep into his skin.

For a moment, Davey imagines Jack’s face. Perfect and pretty and so full of creative intent that he looks like a masterpiece. His own version of the Mona Lisa, right there in person. And he thinks of leaving it behind, of never seeing it again, or not seeing it until his dreams come back to take him. He thinks about missing out on graduating high school with Jack, of not being able to hold his hand in the field as they watch the 9,096 stars in the sky. Davey won’t be able to kiss Jack whenever he wants or sing about him on stage or show him off to his Broadway friends and be shown off in return.

Davey won’t be able to love Jack Kelly, wholly and unafraid, and that is the biggest crime of all.

Nodding along, Davey plays into his father’s wants and wishes. Because still today, no matter what has happened, Davey still loves his father; still wants to make him proud. And if that means leaving Jack behind, then fine. Davey will suffer for it.

Inside his jacket pocket, laying flat against his chest, was the heaviest piece of paper in the world. The picture Jack had drawn him, sitting beneath the spiralling stars and swirling branches, was a token he had taken from the best and worst day of his life. Davey won’t tell his father this, wouldn’t dare have it be destroyed by a hatred he doesn’t understand. Feeling as though it may crush his chest and break his heart, Davey keeps the picture pressed close to his chest, revelling in feeling something today. Something that, if he wanted to, could be a good feeling. He thinks of the drawing and starts to memorize it.

He doesn’t say anything. Isn’t sure he can say something kind to his father right now, something that won’t ruin their relationship more than today already has. Then the past couple of days already have. When his father turns back around in his seat and starts the car, Davey presses his forehead against the window and lets the cool feel of the glass sinks deep into his skin. And when Jack’s house passes by, he pretends he’s not searching the window’s for Jack’s face. He pretends he isn’t disappointed when he can’t find it, when there is nothing to see but his mother’s silhouette behind the drawn curtains.

Closing his eyes, Davey takes painful solace in the fact that Jack’s face will forever be engrained on his eyelids, there to be seen whenever Davey may need him.

_January 21 st, 2020, Manhattan_

_10:17 pm_

The room is a mess. Paint splatters cover the floor like a sea of colour—reds mix into blue to make something ugly in one corner, pink and orange twist into something close to beautiful in another corner—and everywhere Jack steps, the soles of his feet are covered in thick layers of paint. He doesn’t pay attention to it. Instead, he focuses his attention on the countless canvas’ that cover the walls, pilled on top of each other in a mess of creativity. Except, Jack doesn’t see any creativity, only layers of failure stacked together for everyone to see.

Picking up a stray canvas, Jack stares at the paint covered surface, trying not to punch a hole through it. It was ugly—one of the ugliest things Jack has ever painted. The sky doesn’t mix well into the ground, and the stars are nothing but white and yellow splotches on a busted background. Tree branches skew at strange angles, framing the stars in a way that makes the hairs stand up on the back of his neck.

Nothing about the painting is good. It’s no wonder he isn’t getting many buyers lately.

Running his fingers over the curve of each branch, Jack realizes his hands are shaking. His lines don’t stay straight, instead, his fingers run to the middle of the canvas, where he knows something should be, but never is. Jack doesn’t put anything else in the paintings—the stars, the sky, the branches, and the grass are all that he needs to paint. But something is missing every time, but Jack doesn’t know if he has the strength to paint it.

He throws the canvas away in a fit of anger. It crashes to the ground but doesn’t break. Jack wishes it would. He would have an excuse, then, to destroy the rest of his preciously pitiful collection of tree branches and stars.

Jack thinks of Davey as he shoves his hand into a bucket of multicoloured paint. The smooth, cold feeling that surrounds his hand nearly calms him down, but the images of Davey that flash before his eyes like a choppy slideshow are enough to keep him heated. Davey and his frown and his sad eyes. The way Davey held himself in the kitchen, still and covered in armour How Davey laughed at the end, sick and full of a pain Jack never thought he would make Davey feel. It’s in the way that Davey froze at his doorstep, full of fear and disgust and a hint of sadness.

Disgust—that is what kept Jack up at night. In all the ways Davey has looked at Jack—in awe, in confusion, in happiness, in pain and infatuated—Jack has never once thought Davey would be disgusted when they met eyes. But there it had sat, comfortable on his eyelashes, burning Jack from the inside out. And Jack—he doesn’t know what to think. Sitting the disgust next to their kitchen conversation like a criminal line-up, Jack can look at them both and be equally hurt and perplexed, unsure of which hurt him most.

At least, in the kitchen conversation, Jack can see where he had messed up, too. But he doesn’t care about that right now. What he cares about is the curling anger that heats his blood and the intimate urge to destroy his entire collection of stars.

His footsteps are heavy against the floor, leaving tracks of spilt paint in manic spirals and scuffed marks. If one were to look at the floor, they would see no starting point, no real direction, and no ending point. There is only chaos, and within it, Jack creates his own destruction. His paint-covered hand smears a disgusting swirl of colours onto a stray canvas, painted over with ugly stars and crooked branches and molded grass. It’s fitting, watching it become so ugly. So disgusting. It’s like looking into Davey’s eyes, except…

Jack knows that, despite the disgust, Davey’s eyes are still the most beautiful ones he has ever seen. He could stare at them forever, easily and happily get lost in them. Spending hours searching for their stories, every emotion he wants to hide away, but Jack wouldn’t let him. He would dig and dig until he knew every little thing about Davey. Only then, he thinks, will peace come and find him.

Before he can think about it, Jack punches a hole through the middle of his painting. Fist hanging in the air, stiff and curled tight enough to hurt, Jack still doesn’t think about it. Because it feels good, knowing this particular painting wasn’t going to be seen by others. Wasn’t going to be looked down on or gossiped about— _Jack Kelly with another failed starry night? When’s he gonna get good?._ Jack can feel his heart rate slow down to something close to normal. For good measure, he screams.

The painting is thrown across the room. It lands near his Mount Everest of disgraced paintings, and Jack can picture it growing taller by the minute until it hovers over him like an awaiting avalanche. The shadows along the walls will get bigger, darker, heavier, until they come crumbling down on him. He’ll struggle for half a second, maybe shiver at the coldness of its fingers, but giving up would be easy. Sleeping beneath those freezing fingers would be a release from the constant press of heat that covers his chest, the tips of his fingers, his boiling cheeks.

Near the corner of the room, tucked into the shadows, sits a covered canvas. Seated on a lone easel, the canvas cowers beneath a pristine white sheet. Jack has made sure that no paint has ever touched it—not a single clump of dust ruins the beauty of something so simple and clean. Compared to the mess of his floor, the mess of his hands, the covered canvas is the most beautiful thing in the world. But Jack knows what’s underneath it overtakes its beauty. In all of his life, he has never created something so wonderful, so full of life and dreams and meaning. And no one will ever buy it, not even when he’s dead. It’ll be his forever and nobody else’s.

Wiping his hands on his pants, Jack makes sure they’re clean before picking up the easel and moving it towards the center of the room. The legs, now slick with paint, are stable and slim. It’s Jack’s first real canvas, the first one he bought with his own money, and the first one he never destroyed. He made a promise to himself that this easel and everything that’s painted on it will never be tainted. It just so happens that he has only ever painted one thing on it.

Clutching the edge of the sheet-like a lifeline, Jack takes a deep breath. Pulls it off. Tosses it to the floor, remise of the mess but not finding it too important. The moment is…less than anti-climactic, but all of the air is forced out of Jack’s lungs in one fell swoop because—it’s Davey. Outlined in dark shades of himself, cuddled in a soft sweater with his knees pulled to his chest. He sits beneath the stars, scattered and beautifully disproportionate, with tree branches curling around them curiously, cautiously, lovingly. Blues, blacks, and hints of deep purple make up the sky, perfectly faded and smoothed. Even through brush strokes and wishing, the grass looks soft to the touch.

Jack can remember his God-forsaken snapshot of that night. Ten years ago, now, and he knows it’s been a long time. Things are different, Davey’s different, Jack and his life are different. Ever since that night, nothing has ever felt the same. The grass beneath his feet, torn from the grass with his digging fingers, has never felt as soft as it did back then. Watching the stars from rooftops or windows, or those rare moments he goes back to the field has never been the same. Davey is the big factor in all this, and Jack can’t stop staring at his young, painted face. Everything is perfect, from the curve of his nose and the jut of his chin.

“Jack?”

The voice is soft, startled. Something Jack hasn’t heard in a while and for half a second, he thinks the painting is talking to him. But it isn’t and when he turns around, Davey is standing near the doorway. He looks tousled, tired like he hasn’t slept since the fight, and a part of Jack wishes he hasn’t. He wants Davey to feel bad about it, to feel like Jack does, or else it wouldn’t be fair.

Turning back to the painting hurts, but Jack has to do it. Somehow, it feels worse to stare at a version of Davey he lost, a version he might never get back. “What do you want, Davey?”

Even now, Jack can’t find it within himself to think of him as David. It doesn’t feel right, no matter how much he’s changed.

“I wanted to apologize,” says Davey, taking a hesitant step forward. His eyes dart around the warehouse, careful to avoid the painting in the middle of the room. “For being an asshole.”

Jack looks over for half a second, sniffs, then looks back at the painting. He can feel his resolve slipping, can nearly hear the concrete surrounding his heart start to crack. “Those your words?”

“Race may have told me I was an asshole.”

“S’that right?”

Davey’s eyes fall to the painting, unable to resist its beauty and familiarity. “He also said that you were an asshole, and that…uh, we’re perfect for each other. Which, you know, I don’t think—”

“Look, I get it, Davey, alright?” Jack holds up his hands in surrender, turning to face Davey with the growing pressure of tears. Soon enough, he’ll get a headache, or he’ll explode. Right now, he’d rather explode. “I don’t know what kind of shit they did to you up in—up in Boston to make you all weird ‘bout me, but it’s fine. It’s whatever.”

Davey takes another step forward, hands shaking in front of his chest, eyes stuck on the painting. “Jack—”

“You’ll be back in Boston in, what, a day?” Jack continues, bursting at the seams. “You ain’t ever gonna see me again, you’ll make sure of that. Be as weird as you want, Davey. _David._ Get a wife, force yourself to have some kids, I don’t care. I…I don’t care.”

“Jack.” Voice stern but scared, terrified of both his question and the answer.

Conflicted, tired, and on the edge of…something, Jack snaps, “What?”

“What is that?” Davey points his shaking finger at the painting, at himself, back when he knew what that was, and it’s as though a dam has broken.

Jack’s breath catches, whistling as it gets stuck in his teeth. It wasn’t supposed to go like this, Jack thinks. In his mind, he played it out dramatically, like something you would see in an Oscar-baiting movie: overly pretentious with too many held back tears and a lot of words nobody can understand. Jack wanted to scream it from to rooftops, to yell so loud that his voice carries like an earthquake all the way to Boston. He wanted it to happen by chance at one of his galleries, surrounded by posh art-snobs trying to grasp the concept of a boy sitting beneath the stars. They would over-analyze everything, look for meaning in the way the branches curl or the direction of the grass. When asked to explain, Jack would simply say that the picture was what love looks like.

“It’s you,” says Jack, as though it were obvious. It might be, but Jack was the one with the snapshot in time burned into his mind, and Davey could have forgotten all about it. “It’s always been you. Nothing ain’t ever been ‘bout somebody else, and I never wanted it to be ‘bout somebody else. You were everything to me, Davey—you still fuckin’ are, no matter how hard you try not to be.”

The room feels colder now, a chill seeping in through the cracks, covering them in the frigid January air. Davey wraps his arms around his stomach, whether to hold himself together or to keep away the cold, Jack doesn’t know. But he fights against his own instinct to wrap his own arms around Davey’s waist, pull him close and hug him for all he’s worth. He imagines that Davey would hit him, maybe claw his way out of the embrace and suffer in the cold, spew some words that Jack wouldn’t dare to repeat. Jack thinks he would let Davey hurt him like that, if only to get the feeling of Davey’s waist beneath his hands.

Jack continues, determined to say what he has to before it’s too late. “Loving you was the easiest thing I have ever done. I didn’t even try to stop myself, and I…I don’t _want_ to stop. I want to keep loving you, Davey, and you’re makin’ it hard. You…” a laugh cuts him from the inside out, feeling a lot like poison. “There ain’t been nobody else since you, and there sure as hell wasn’t someone before you. Davey Jacobs, you are the only man I have ever loved. When you left, I—it’s like I died that day. The only good thing in my life was gone, and you ain’t ever tried to call or text. You ain’t ever flown back to Manhattan to come look for me. You vanished, and it felt like the end of the world.”

Unsure of how to continue, unsure of how to not just repeat himself until his tongue has been shaved to pieces and his teeth have rotten out and speaking becomes impossible. He doesn’t want to waste Davey’s time with his useless ramblings of love and pain and how horrible it had felt to know that he would never see Davey again. But what else is Jack supposed to say when that is the only thing he has felt for the past ten years?

Letting his eyes roam from the painting towards reality, Jack finds Davey trying to avoid his eyes. Still, he can see the fresh wave of tears that stick to Davey’s lashes, the tightness of his jaw as he forces them back, and the twisting grip he has on his sides. Briefly, Jack stops to think that— _it really shouldn’t feel this bad._ Love, as the movies go, is a struggle but it’s worth it. Lovers do stupid things, but in the end, everything is alright, because a good kiss and a nice bed are all people need in order to maintain that flicker of happiness one finds in another person. Jack wonders if this will turn out like those movies.

“I love you, Davey,” says Jack with all the emotion he can muster. He can taste it on his tongue, and it tastes a lot like blood. “Okay? _I love you._ I paint you every day, and it ain’t ever as good as the real thing. I think of you every day, and it hurts because I sit in here and I wonder if you’re thinkin’ of me, too.”

Whether he means it or not, Davey backs away from Jack. Slow, heavy steps, full of shaking toes and trembling soles. A hand comes flying up to his lips, trembling just as his feet do, fingertips pressing harshly into the skin of his cheek. Fighting against the urge to vomit, Davey shakes his head, tears spilling past his lashes. Jack has half a mind to press forward and run his thumb over Davey’s cheeks to catch the tears, to stop them. If only Davey would let him close enough.

“Davey.” Begging is not too far from what Jack does, tone dripping with want, pleading with him to just stay, to not run away. It’s all Jack needs. “Please. Please, don’t leave.”

All of his words must have flown over Davey’s head because, in the next second, he is turning on his heel and running out the door and into the freezing cold. But not even the breeze can disturb Jack now, not when his heart had left with Davey. He looks back to the painting of Davey and wonders if it is cursed.

_May 8 th, 2010, Manhattan_

_1:09 am_

The world has blurred for Jack, and he thinks it might be irreversible. A part of him wants it to be inevitable, irreversible, damaged beyond repair. What use is it to use his eyes if he can’t see Davey’s face again? Or what is the use of his ears if he can’t hear Davey’s laugh? What is the use of his hands if he can’t feel Davey’s skin under his own, his heartbeat pounding against the tips of his fingers?

Jack forces himself to keep moving, to keep breathing, to keep blinking. As the tears fall from his eyes, carving trails down his cheeks, he shivers against the cool breeze. Today had been on the verge of a spring storm, and Jack had been disappointed when it never came. The storm would be fitting for his mood, for the turmoil and disastrous feelings he has within him. Not that Jack has anyone to talk to about his feelings now that Davey…that Davey left.

Cool grass beneath his feet does nothing to soothe his wandering mind, though it only ever wonders towards one topic. To think of something else, some _body_ else, would be a cruel act done so not by Jack himself, but by whatever higher power decided to screw with his heart. Because if Jack could, all he would think about is Davey. Davey this, Davey that…how Davey’s hair might look in the morning, or how the serenity fits over his face as he goes to sleep. How he yawns and runs and cries and laughs and hugs and kisses. How he lives and breathes next to Jack, more alive than anyone else.

Today, it feels like Jack should be attending a funeral.

He did, once, back in Santa Fe where his Grandma used to live. She died an old lady, loved yet alone. Surviving the death of a lover doesn’t have a repair button, and no number of Band-Aids can fix that wound. Jack watched as his Grandma lost her life, lost the fight she used to hold onto tightly. He watches as they lowered a sleek coffin into the ground. And he watched, but did not experience, throwing a handful of dirt onto her casket, or placing a rose upon her grave. And yet, on that day, he did not feel as destroyed as today. Tonight. This life that he created, his own little world has been shattered beyond repair.

His knees hit the ground before he realizes where he is. Cool grass seeps through his jeans, the dirt shifting beneath his weight. Sprawling branches above his head dance and curl around him, protecting him with all their might. Even the stars still shine and spiral as they do, sitting high up in the sky, too far away to capture and hold close. All 9,096 stars that taunt him now, both with their beauty and their eternal life. If Davey were there beside him, he would tell Jack how wrong he was, because Jack knows he’s wrong, but it doesn’t matter anymore. Stars don’t live forever, no matter how much Jack wishes they would. They explode, burst into a cloud of gas and fire and—and a lot of other things Jack can’t remember. But then they come back, because they have to, or else Jack wouldn’t know what to stare at anymore.

With a hand pressed down into the dirt, past the soft grass against his palm, he curls his fingers within the dirt. Feeling it cake beneath his nails and crawl between the cracks of his skin, settling in like a wood bug in a log. Jack tries to feel something within the earth, a worm maybe, or even an ant.

“Why?” He asks of the ground, quiet and barely heard with his own ears. He doesn’t know if he has the strength to be any louder, but he wonders if he screams loud enough, if Davey would hear him and come back. “Why’d you take him?”

Throwing his head back, Jack forces his eyes to stay open as the tears sting and rush up his face. Saltwater crawls up into his eyebrows, ready to mat them and make them hurt in the morning, but right now Jack doesn’t care. Doesn’t care about anything because nothing matters anymore. Nothing is _right_ anymore.

Grabbing a fistful of dirt, Jack forces himself to his feet and throws the dirt at the stars. For a moment, he thinks he’s hit them. Then the dirt comes tumbling down onto his face, harsh and soft at the same time. It gets in his eyes, clamped tight to avoid it, and sticks to his peeling lips. Caking his face as it does his hand. His chest heaves and his heart refuses to lay still, to stay quiet so late at night. What’s the point in it beating anymore when there is nothing to beat for?

“Why?” Jack asks again, louder this time, with a ferocity he didn’t know he possessed. It was as though a lion had possessed him, roaring to life within his agony. “Why’d you take him from me?” It turns to an ugly scream, scratching and tearing his throat apart with no mercy. The tears sting his cheeks, draw lines in the dirt on his face. “I loved him! I loved him, and you—and you took him away from me!”

His Grandma used to tell him that the world was cruel, that it didn’t care for you or your feelings. Carving your own happiness out of life was the only way to get it. And Jack had thought he’d done that. Finding Davey in this field, becoming his friend and then chasing after for more. He was happy— _they_ were happy. And life would have kept being happy if it weren’t intent on being a dick.

A whisper, now, ragged and torn to pieces. “I loved him. I _love_ him. I love him.”

Jack repeats those words until they aren’t words anymore, simply facts that can never be undone. They grind themselves into the earth, become the dirt beneath his feet and beneath his nails. Becomes the stars above, taunting and watching over him. Becomes the tree branches that wish to protect him, but never can.

“You gave me an angel,” Jack claims, and it is such an easy thing to claim. Sweet, gentle Davey with all the makings of a guardian angel. Sent down to him to make life worth living, and yet… “You gave me my angel, and then you took him away. That’s so mean.”

_Juvenile,_ Jack thinks as an afterthought. But he is allowed to be juvenile while being fifteen—nobody should wrong him for that, not even himself. And yet shame flushes through him at the thought of being so disgustingly young and in love and sad and alone. Jack didn’t use to mind being alone, but once he has experienced what it is to be loved, being alone is the worst feeling in the world.

Collapsing into a heap on the ground, Jack doesn’t have the mind to relish in the softness of the grass against his burning cheek or the cool press of the breeze against his fingers. All he notices is the fantom touches of Davey’s lips on his, gentle hands on his shoulders, and the press of Davey’s chest against his own. And if life were to have ended right there, Jack thinks he might have had peace.

_January 21 st, 2020, Manhattan_

_11:20 pm_

David was never one for swing sets. The chains had always pinched his sides, and the other kids always threw the swings over the bars too much when he wasn’t looking, and David wasn’t tall enough to jump on when they were done. If it weren’t for that, David thinks he might like the swings—the feeling of flying through the air, careless and independent as he forces his legs to dig into the air and propel him forward.

Tonight, David forces himself onto a swing and keeps his feet planted on the ground. If he swings now, he may just throw up. So far on his trip, he has done well to not throw up, though he has always been close. And David wishes he didn’t feel this way—didn’t feel such an urge to rid himself of what he feels. But the drills that were beaten into him as a kid are still strong despite his wishes to tear them down.

Running away from Jack hadn’t been David’s original plan, though he isn’t sure he had a plan to begin with. It felt weird to not know what to do next, to not be thinking of every step on his path, but how was he supposed to know what Jack would do? What he would say? And the painting wasn’t on David’s plan list. That painting— _drawing_ , more like—has been weighing heavily on his chest for ten years now. Keeping it tucked beneath his mattress while away at camp, David would take it out at night and stare at it for hours, just to feel something again. Just to know that someone loved him, that someone didn’t want him to change.

Now, he supposes, Jack would like him to change. To get back to where they used to be, and then they can be happy. But David isn’t sure he possesses his younger self anymore. He lost that a long time ago.

When David closes his eyes and takes a long, deep breath, snowflakes clog up his nose. Surprised, he nearly chokes on the cold water that melts on his face. Holding out his hand to the sky, letting the snowflakes catch on his fingers. He smiles and lets himself get lost in the feeling of snow melting against his fingers. A small luxury of winter, and the only good thing that comes from the cold.

“Havin’ fun?”

Looking over towards the sidewalk, David finds Jack standing beneath an old lamp post. Haloed in light, surrounded by small flakes of snow, he looks almost like an angel.

David offers a slim smile, and it shakes like his hands love to do so often. Even tonight, with Jack looking the way he does, David cannot find it within himself to stop worrying about everything. He is a grown man, living on his own with no one to tell him what to do, and yet he cannot make his own decisions about Jack. About the future. About his happiness.

“It’s, uh, too cold for me,” says David, bringing his hand back to his chest. His eyes jump from Jack’s nose to his hands, then out to the abandoned playground in front of him.

Nodding, Jack hesitates before coming over to sit on the swing next to David. Together, they ignore the awkwardness that hangs around them, heavy as a London fog. Not knowing what to say or how to act or where to look, David forces his mind to stop wandering off. Living in the moment would be a much better use of his time, though a much more painful use.

David says, “It’s a beautiful painting.”

“I’ve only ever painted you,” says Jack, and David wonders how he’s capable of being so honest and vulnerable. “Everything has your essence.”

Swallowing what feels like a load of cement, prickling the inside of his throat as it slowly makes its way down to his stomach. Soon, it will weigh him down through the ground, force him to sit in the Underworld for the rest of eternity. At least it’s warm down there. Quietly, David says, “I didn’t want to leave, you have to know. I brought you with me, even as I was telling myself I had to forget you.”

His hand comes to rest on his chest, where the phantom weight of Jack’s drawing rests. When he closes his eyes, he can see it perfectly, each and every pencil mark, every eraser stripe, everything down to the very last detail. It lays, framed, beneath his socks, tucked away in a drawer in which he’s too frightened to open.

Jack looks at him from the corner of his eye, face grim with sorrow. A conversation long overdue, with both of them angry and sad and full of love.

“My father,” David continues, voice shaking as he thinks back to his youth. “Took me to some…Jewish conversation camp in Boston. Said he wanted to fix me. And I spent five years being fixed for something I knew wasn’t my choice. Five years of being told I was wrong and unnatural, of making walls to block out those feelings just for them to be torn to pieces when I saw you.”

Tears well up in his eyes. He knows what comes next, all the pain that follows, and sharing it all with Jack is a necessity that he doesn’t want. But how can he go on without telling Jack the truth of it all? Living while knowing Jack hates him, resents him for leaving and never coming back, would be as bad as dying on the spot.

Clearing his throat, Jack says, “Davey…you don’t have to explain it. I know what it’s like to look at you and feel like nothing else matters or—or makes sense. I get it.”

He doesn’t get it, David knows that. Jack didn’t sit through five years of brainwashing, of being told he was wrong and needed to be fixed in order to be worth something. That liking boys was disgusting and cruel to nature, that David was depriving the world and God of more devoted children. Hearing every day and night that, one day, he will be saved from his rebellion.

Looking at Jack, snowflakes stuck in his hair and on his lashes, gathering on his knees, David knows true beauty. He always has, knowing that Jack existed and knowing that the standard would never be met. No one has compared to his curious, earnest gaze and his youthful creativity, the gentle soul filled with feelings and intense emotions. It was, and still is, something David admires about Jack—his willingness to be so open.

“You deserve an explanation,” says David. He runs his hands over his cheeks, peach fuzz bristling with the cold. “After what I’ve put through, you deserve someone better.”

“Ain’t nobody better than you.”

David looks to Jack, skeptical. He avoids looking into his eyes, afraid of what he might do. “Not even Alan Alda?”

Taken aback, Jack nearly chokes on a laugh. “You—you can’t just use Alan Alda like that. Okay? That’s ain’t fair to you.”

Together, their laughter sounds like a movie score. Twisting sounds mix together as they rise into the sky, curling around the stars like a warm blanket. Not even the cold of a Manhattan winter can make the stars rigid when David and Jack— _Davey_ and Jack—turn back to their younger selves. Allowed to bask in the other's presence, allowed to laugh and cry and have simple fun together.

When the laughter calms and the wave of serenity has fallen to their feet, David remembers that he is supposed to be telling a story.

David starts again. “After five years, I was deemed normal. They let me go home. Well, really, they just let me stay in Boston. Boston has never been my home.” His eyes glance over at Jack, aware of his heart’s definition of ‘home’. “My plan was to find you, and…and tell you I was fixed. To rip off a massive Band-Aid and move on. My mother already had a girl picked out for me to marry. Saying good-bye to you was supposed to be my last step away from homosexuality.”

Jack swallows, thick and dry. His fingers shake like an earthquake, eyes jumping from one star to another in a frantic attempt to grasp at reality. “You never came back.”

Shaking his head, David’s heart drops to his stomach. “My, uh…my father got sick, and I just—I couldn’t leave him like that. He’s still my father, and I still loved him. And when he died—” David closes his eyes and lets the tears pool on his lower lashes “—how was I supposed to deny his last wish? Taking over the company was my only path to the future.”

“Davey…” his voice is hoarse and filled with a plethora of emotions that David doesn’t have the heart to read into. Reaching out his hand, Jack plants his palm on David’s knees and squeezes. They both shiver at the contact.

David’s eyes snap open, tears falling free and blurring the sight of Jack’s hand on his knee. “I never dated the girl. I never dated anyone. It always just felt so _wrong_ to touch someone else or look at them like they were supposed to mean something to me. I didn’t want to admit that it felt so wrong because it wasn’t you.”

Desperation fits them like an old-money glove. It drips from them like crystals, lays itself into the cracks of their hearts and attempts to glue it back together. Their tongues taste of wanting and with every word they wish for a better life, a better tonight, and a better tomorrow.

When David plucks up the courage to finally look Jack in the eyes, he only has half a second to marvel at how beautiful they look in the moonlight (like pools he wants to dip his toes in) before Jack places one hand on the back of his neck and pulls him in close. Lips press against his, peeling yet soft. Cold and frigid but moving with enough heat to start a fire. David is rigid against the kiss, heart beating so hard against his chest he fears it may jump right out and ruin the moment. The familiar feeling of bile crawls to the middle of his throat, sitting in anticipation.

_This is fine,_ David thinks, eyes fluttering shut despite his best efforts to keep them open. _This…this isn’t supposed to be wrong. It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okayit’sokayit’sokayit’sokayit’sokay._

Raising his own shaking hand, David places it against Jack’s cheek. Cool palm against flushed cheek. The pads of his fingers find the harsh cut of Jack’s cheekbone and sit delicately upon it, scared of touching too much or ruining the moment. Moving his lips against Jack’s, he tries his best to push his feelings into the kiss: sadness, fear, pain, desperation, want, happiness. Anything he can feel, he hopes Jack can feel it, too.

Jack is the first to pull away, only barely, eyes closed and breath puffing out between his lips in small clouds. He rests his forehead against David’s, keeping him close with a firm grasp on the back of his neck. David doesn’t blame him for, he thinks, he might run away if Jack were to let him go.

Into the darkness, David whispers, “I loved you. I want…I want to keep loving you, but I’ll be slow. I don’t—this doesn’t—”

“I know,” whispers Jack. He opens his eyes and locks them with David’s. His smile is kind, soft and gentle with just the right amount of pride to feel real. When he looks at David like that, David feels as though the world is both okay and on the verge of destruction. “I’ve waited ten years for you, Davey, and I’ll wait ten more if I have to. Hell, I’ll wait forty years for you. If you come to me when we’re eighty-five and livin’ in those old folks’ homes, I’ll still wait. You’re more than worth it.”

Sat beneath the stars, wrapped up in each other’s warmth and teetering on the edge of graceful destruction, David closes his eyes and leans in for another kiss. And though it may feel wrong at the start, with each passing second of Jack’s lips moving against his own, the taste of salty tears and desperation on his tongue, David knows he can put himself back together and bring back the love from when they were fifteen and devoted. Never again will David leave Jack’s side—that, he can promise.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! Thanks for reading this hunk of a fic, and hopefully you all enjoyed it. I spent about a month or two working on it, and I really like it. I'm super proud of this work. It originally came about as an idea for a BTS fanfic of parallels and such, but then I lost a good chunk of the idea other than the basics: two boys, best friends and more, get separated and reunite years later. 
> 
> But yes, let me know what you guys thought in the comments. It makes me so happy to see all your thoughts and feelings. LOVE YOU ALL!!  
> (Also, someone commented on my other Javid story about how happy it was compared to the rest of the fandom, and I was laughing so hard as I continued to write this sad shit. Forgive me, please.)


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